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The Labour Department is committed to promoting family-friendly employment practices in the community.
Addressing the 2006 Hong Kong Institute of Human Resource Management Annual Conference today (November 22), the Permanent Secretary for Economic Development and Labour, Mr Matthew Cheung Kin-chung, said that the advantages in implementing family-friendly employment practices were obvious.
It would reduce employees¡¯ stress that was caused by conflicts between work and family responsibilities, thereby reducing absenteeism and enhancing productivity. Other positive effects were higher morale, team spirit, better staff relations and decreased turnover among staff, Mr Cheung said.
In an attempt to understand the prevalence and pattern of family-friendly employment practices adopted in Hong Kong, the Labour Department recently conducted a questionnaire survey with 326 organisations.
Mr Cheung shared the findings of the survey with the participants at the conference today. ¡°The most common friendly-friendly employment practices adopted in Hong Kong is the provision of extra leaves on special occasions,¡± he said.
Altogether 71% of the companies surveyed offered compassionate leave on death of family members, 69% offered marriage leave while about 16% offered paternity leave. The common duration of these leaves ranged from three to five days. The majority of these companies offered holiday pay for the leave.
¡°Some companies also introduced flexible working arrangements to enable employees handle their family duties more easily,¡± Mr Cheung continued. Examples were the implementation of a five-day week, setting ceiling on working hours and adoption of staggered working hours.
The survey also found that some companies adopted innovative practices to cater for the well-being of their employees. Such innovative practices included organising parental and family recreational activities for the employees and their family members; offering stress and emotion management counseling or workshops; and providing child-care services, nursing rooms and family resource centres.
¡°I feel rather encouraged that most of the organisations participating in the survey were receptive to the implementation of family-friendly employment practices and to achieving a better work-life balance. About 32% of them clearly stated that they would consider adopting more such practices in future.
¡°It is also noteworthy that of the companies surveyed, 43% indicated that they have never heard of the concept,¡± Mr Cheung said. The findings suggested that there was considerable room for further promoting the concept.
In this regard, the Labour Department will hold a large-scale seminar in June next year to promote family-friendly employment practices.
At the annual conference today, Mr Cheung also highlighted three key ingredients - dialogue, care and staff development - to make employees productive and to develop happy employee relations.
Noting that a regular dialogue between employees and employers could enhance staff motivation and empowerment, Mr Cheung said frank and open dialogues enabled management to understand the needs of employees, not just what they needed at work but also what they needed for family life and personal development.
¡°A caring and considerate employer can adopt appropriate family-friendly employment practices to help employees fulfil their work and family commitments simultaneously,¡± he said.
On staff development, Mr Cheung said that ¡°people-oriented¡± was the new catch-phrase in human resource management . A person must keep on acquiring new knowledge and skills on the one hand, and doing away with old habits and outdated information on the other.
¡°Together, they - dialogue, care and staff development - constitute a recipe for an all-win situation and are conducive to building a happy, productive and talented workforce,¡± Mr Cheung said.
Ends/Wednesday, November 22, 2006
Issued at HKT 14:59
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