Rethinking the 9 to 6: why Karachi deserves flexible work | The Express Tribune
On a sultry Karachi morning, the clock reads 8:15. A line of Suzuki vans, motorcycles and rickshaws snakes through pothole-ridden roads, horns blaring in frustration. Among the passengers is Saima, a 28-year-old developer who has already spent 45 minutes just reaching Shahrah-e-Faisal. Her office insists she arrive at 9 sharp —”late deduction” looms if she…
On a sultry Karachi morning, the clock reads 8:15. A line of Suzuki vans, motorcycles and rickshaws snakes through pothole-ridden roads, horns blaring in frustration. Among the passengers is Saima, a 28-year-old developer who has already spent 45 minutes just reaching Shahrah-e-Faisal. Her office insists she arrive at 9 sharp —”late deduction” looms if she does not. By the time she finally reaches her desk, drenched in sweat and stress, she has little energy left for meaningful work.
This scene plays out across Karachi every day. The idea that a city with crumbling roads, no reliable public transport and ever-present traffic jams can sustain a rigid “9 to 6” work culture is not just outdated, but it is unfair as well. Corporate Pakistan needs to rethink its blind adherence to strict schedules that were imported from Western industrial models but never adapted to our own realities.
The illusion of 9 hours’ productivity
In theory, a 9-hour office day should yield solid productivity. In practice, however, it often results in the opposite. Walk into many offices at 9am: desks filled, but workers are scrolling through their phones, gathering for tea or stretching out breakfast into brunch. By 1pm, there’s another wave of distraction: extended lunch breaks, group gossip and long cigarette trips. Much of the “work” day dissolves into filler.
Employees are not lazy; they are responding to an environment that prioritises attendance over output. Pakistani corporate culture, particularly in the private sector, measures commitment by how many hours someone sits in a chair, not by what they actually deliver. The result is a culture of “presenteeism” i.e. being physically present but mentally absent.
Karachi’s unique challenge
Metropolises with efficient metros and buses can at least rationalise synchronised start times. Karachi cannot. This is a city where commuting even 8 kilometres can take an hour. With no functional public transport, employees spend thousands of rupees on Careem or ride broken minibuses with no safety standards. The daily grind starts not at 9am, but at 7:30, just to reach the office gate to mark the attendance in time.
The irony is stark: managers demand punctuality in a city whose infrastructure makes punctuality nearly impossible. Late-arrival penalties, rather than motivating workers, only deepen resentment. Instead of inspiring discipline, they reinforce the sense that companies value the clock more than their people.
What the pandemic taught us
Covid-19 forced offices worldwide, including in Pakistan, to experiment with remote work. For many industries like IT, finance, design, content and research, productivity did not collapse. In fact, in several cases, it improved. Without wasting time on long commutes or office theatrics, employees focused on tasks. Yet once restrictions lifted, many companies rushed back to the “comfort” of the traditional 9-to-6 model, as though the pandemic’s lessons were an inconvenient truth.
It is worth asking if flexible hours and work-from-home proved feasible in a crisis, why should they not be part of normal operations now?
Flexibility as a new corporate standard
Instead of clinging to industrial-era schedules, Karachi’s corporate culture can adopt models that prioritise outcomes:
Flexible office timings
Employees should be able to start between 8 and 11am, depending on personal commute realities. Work completion —not strict arrival —should be the key metric.
Shorter official workdays
Global research shows the six-hour or four-day workweek often increases productivity. If Pakistani offices cut their day from 9 hours to 6 focused hours, with real accountability, the so-called “wasted” hours of gossip and tea/smoking breaks would shrink naturally.
Work from home, where possible
Obviously, not every sector can adopt this. Factories, healthcare and logistics demand physical presence. But IT, digital marketing, finance, consulting and education administration can thrive remotely.
No late deduction penalties
Instead of punishing late arrivals, companies should track deliverables. If deadlines are met and quality maintained, how does it matter if someone logs in at 9:30 instead of 9:00?
Beyond comfort: the economics of flexibility
Some argue that flexible hours are about convenience. In reality, they are about economics. The daily commute extracts a hidden tax on both workers and the city. Employees spend thousands on fuel or ride-hailing; companies pay indirectly through lower morale, higher turnover and burnout. Karachi pays through endless congestion, pollution and lost time.
Flexible work policies reduce this triple burden. They lower operational costs (less office space, electricity), cut emissions and improve employee well-being. They also open the job market to women, parents and people with disabilities who cannot navigate Karachi’s chaotic commute but can contribute meaningfully from home.
A humane future of work
Saima, the software developer, does not dream of fewer tasks. She dreams of dignity: the ability to begin work at 10 after dropping her younger brother at school, without being labeled “undisciplined”. She dreams of finishing tasks efficiently in six hours and spending her evenings with family, instead of being stuck in traffic.
Work should not be a punishment. It should be purposeful. Karachi, with all its urban dysfunction, cannot afford the luxury of rigid corporate traditions imported wholesale from another era. The question for our companies is simple: will they cling to the myth of productivity by attendance, or will they embrace the reality of productivity through flexibility?
