Hong Kong companies should adopt more flexible and inclusive workplace policies to help retain and attract young talent, a panel of business leaders and experts has said.
Speakers at the Post’s Redefining Hong Kong conference said on Friday that government policies had helped the city regain its status as a talent hub but more could be done to reduce barriers.
“I think Hong Kong has [been] stepping up its efforts [to attract talent] significantly,” said Joy Xu Jinghui, group chief people and culture officer at DFI Retail Group. “We are in a much better place [than] two years ago.”
She added that businesses that wanted to continue to grow should adopt a more multilingual workplace environment and cater to the changing preferences of the younger generation of talent.
“I think that it’s really important for organisations to recognise the needs of different generations and different nationalities and races, to make it a more attractive place,” she said.
In 2022, Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu’s administration launched a series of measures that sought to attract fresh talent and help counter an emigration wave.
The policies include the Top Talent Pass Scheme, which is open to candidates who earned more than HK$2.5 million (US$320,000) over the past 12 months and graduates of the world’s top 100 universities.
The scheme has received more than 85,000 applications, with 68,000 being approved, between its launch in late 2022 and May of this year.
Combined with other policies, the city has welcomed more than 130,000 people by June, surpassing the government’s target of bringing in 105,000 over three years.
Alfred Ho Tat-Kei, dean of City University’s College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences, said Hong Kong had been doing quite well in attracting talent, but could do more to ensure workers stayed in the city.
He said that many of his own students wished to stay in Hong Kong after they graduated but faced challenges as many businesses required Cantonese-speaking proficiency.
He also highlighted that Hong Kong lacked flexible work arrangement policies that had been introduced in jurisdictions such as Singapore and Japan.
“I think there are some things we should do at a corporate organisational level,” Ho said. “We need to build more inclusive, culturally sensitive [workplace] environments.”
Starting from December 1, businesses in Singapore will be required to have a formal process in place to consider employee requests for flexible work arrangements, such as remote hybrid work or staggered starting times.
Japan also recently passed legislation requiring companies to provide flexible arrangements such as remote work and adjusted hours for employees with children.
Echoing the need for greater inclusiveness and work flexibility, Jobsdb by Seek managing director Bill Lee said that in worldwide surveys his company had conducted, Hong Kong often ranked high in job opportunities and compensation, but tended to fall short in quality of life.
He said that young talent also prioritised career progression and wanted to feel as though their day-to-day work had a connection with a wider “mission to society”.
“We are not comparing ourselves against, for example, the mid-tier. We are comparing ourselves against the top, top countries and destinations worldwide and in that regard I think we have a ways to go,” he said.
Vincent Chan, Greater Bay Area technology and data connect leader at EY, said that young talent were keen to embrace more technology-oriented companies that offered diverse work experiences.
“People like to work smarter, and work with more technology, and they want to find challenging tasks,” he said.
Chan added that it was also important to have an international talent pool, which could help bring in different skill sets.
“We believe that having a diverse talent pool, we’re actually more productive and we actually work better,” he said.
