Employer awareness and the prevalence of family-friendly employment policies and practices in Hong Kong is low, a joint study by the Equal Opportunities and Women's Commissions has found.

Family-friendly employment policies and practices refer to programmes provided by companies or organisations designed to help staff balance work and family roles.

Survey forms were sent to 6,600 organisations. Among them, 137 valid questionnaires were received. For the employee survey, 735 employees from 17 companies were invited to complete a questionnaire and 653 valid responses were received.

Only 37.2% of the surveyed companies said they were aware of the practices and only 10.2% had in place formal policy or guidance for the practices.

About 29.7% of the questioned employees considered the employment policies and practices of their companies as family-friendly. About 76.3% supported the implementation of more family-friendly practices.

Family-friendly environment

Womens' Commission Chairwoman Sophia Kao said the survey revealed a low awareness of family-friendly practices among employers.

However, responses from employees show strong support for wider adoption of family-friendly practices.

She said a family-friendly working environment is conducive to the nurturing of harmonious families, thus enhancing the family function as a place of mutual support, care and love and for developing the next generation.

The commissions will continue to collaborate to consider the next step forward when the full study report is available in July.