So much has been said and written about striking the proper work-life balance. And of all the people in the world, Hong Kong people must work the hardest to find the ideal balance, as we have the questionable honor of logging the longest period each week -- a staggering 50.1 hours, which does not even factor in the daily commute between our home and workplace. If included, it can be safely concluded that most Hong Kong employees, and very likely many of their employers as well, are left with less than 10 percent of their waking hours to attend to their other needs.
It’s telling that some employers expressed stronger reservations toward the introduction of standard working hours in Hong Kong than the introduction of a statutory minimum wage. It was also pointed out that in the light of an aging workforce and the problem of a labor shortage in some specific trades and industries, we should not rush into mandating a regime for maximum working hours.
As the Legislative Council panel to study the issue and the administration have yet to decide on the way forward, perhaps it’s time for us to revisit the contentious issue. The populist view is that it is high time for working hours to be limited through legislation, as some labor sector representatives have come to the conclusion that employer self-regulation will not work. One major complaint was that limiting work hours might force employers to hire additional staff. It goes back to their perennial concern about having to minimize their business overheads.
Hong Kong’s standing is slowly deteriorating according to a number of international financial and economic indices. Questions must be asked as to whether Hong Kong is losing its competitiveness. We are therefore confronted by the obvious puzzling question: If Hong Kong people work such insanely long hours, why is this not reflected positively in such international surveys? The answer, it seems, lies in this age-old advice on career success: “Work smart, not just hard.”
This in turn leads us to question if our workforce is best equipped to deliver the most efficient service in all sectors. If various career-matching studies are to be believed, it seems Hong Kong still has a long way to go in fielding the right expertise among its workforce in order to deliver the best value for money service in its business, finance, banking, manufacturing, information technology, and a whole slew of other supportive services sectors.
Maybe the hard question to ask is not how many hours should we limit our workers to, but how best to prepare our workers so that they need not work such long hours, but just enough “smart hours” to accomplish their tasks.
