For the first time in a decade of research, work-life balance has overtaken salary as the most important employee value proposition that workers look for in an employer. According to the poll by Randstad as part of their Employer Brand Research 2022, ‘attractive salary and benefits’ dipped two per cent from the previous year to 60.2%, while ‘work-life balance’ stood at 60.4%.
The survey also revealed that women in Hong Kong have higher expectations from their employers than men. 65% of women voted ‘work-life balance’ as the top employee value proposition compared to only 55% of men.
In a bit to attain a better work-life balance, 85% of Hongkongers had reportedly taken actions to improve their situation. One in three respondents said that they worked fewer overtime hours and 29% decided to work flexible hours to improve their WLB. However, the number of Hong Kong workers who were either fully or partially working from home halved over the past year with the number of workers working on-site increasing by 21%.
Commenting on the results, Benjamin Elms, Regional Director, Randstad said, “After two years of COVID, Hongkongers are starting to feel the ‘lock-in’ syndrome, in which they go through the motions without anything such as a vacation or meaningful break to look forward to. Time is very important to employees, especially Gen Z and millennials. These younger generations of workers do not want to live in the shadow of their work. They want to have enough time to do the activities they enjoy to keep their minds off work. Companies that want to appeal to fresh talent should make sure to hire more people to share the workload rather than expect their employees to work overtime regularly.”
Paul Arkwright
Publisher
