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The Secretary for Labour and Welfare, Mr Matthew Cheung Kin-chung, today (September 11) called on employers and employees to work together to introduce "family-friendly employment practices" for the benefit of both the enterprises and employees.
Speaking at the "Seminar on Good People Management and Family-friendly Employment Practices" organised by the Labour Department, Mr Cheung stressed that staff are valuable assets to enterprises.
"Despite the economic downturn brought about by the financial tsunami and the human swine flu in the past year, some enterprises knew full well the value of their employees. Not only have they refrained from laying off their staff, some even continued to recruit, strengthen staff training and give out special bonus to employees. These enterprises have weathered the storm side by side with their employees," he said.
Mr Cheung said that employees would be more conscientious if their employers or human resources managers were understanding enough to introduce practical employment measures to allow them to fulfill their family duties.
He expressed the hope that more business executives and managers would try their best to adopt family-friendly employment practices. This would help employees lead a happier family life and prevent possible social problems, he said.
"With determination and a little bit of creativity, I am sure enterprises would be able to implement family-friendly employment practices that best suit the scale, resources and culture of their companies," Mr Cheung added.
Family-friendly employment practices refer to good people management measures that help employees balance the responsibilities of their work and families. Those practices include providing family leave benefits such as marriage leave and paternity leave; setting up flexible work arrangements such as a five-day workweek and flexible working hours; offering family support such as organising recreational activities in which family members can join.
Commissioner for Labour, Mrs Cherry Tse, and Women's Commission Chairperson, Ms Sophia Kao, also attended the seminar.
Around 300 representatives of employer associations and trade unions as well as management executives and human resources managers joined the seminar. Representatives from two companies and an academic talked about ways to enhance employer-employee collaboration during hard times while three company representatives shared their experience in implementing family-friendly employment practices.
Ends/Friday, September 11, 2009
Issued at HKT 16:05
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