The most common family-friendly employment practice in Hong Kong is to grant extra paid leave on special occasions, says Permanent Secretary for Economic Development & Labour Matthew Cheung.

Addressing the 2006 Hong Kong Institute of Human Resource Management Annual Conference today, Mr Cheung said that the advantages in implementing family-friendly employment practices were obvious.

It reduces employees' stress caused by conflicts between work and family responsibilities, thereby reducing absenteeism and enhancing productivity. It also leads to higher morale, team spirit, better staff relations and decreased turnover.

Citing a recent Labour Department survey of 326 organisations, Mr Cheung said 71% of the companies gave compassionate leave on death of family members, 69% offered marriage leave while about 16% provided paternity leave.

The leaves typically lasted from three to five days, and most of the surveyed companies offered holiday pay for the leave.

"Some companies also introduced flexible working arrangements to enable employees to handle their family duties more easily, like adopting a five-day week, capping working hours and adopting staggered working hours.

Family-related support

"Some of them even adopted innovative practices to cater for their staff's well-being, such as parental and family recreational activities for the employees; offering stress and emotion management counseling or workshops; and providing child-care services, nursing rooms and family resource centres," Mr Cheung said.

Most companies agreed family-friendly employment practices could make a better work-life balance, while about 32% of them would consider adopting more such practices in future.