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Although Hong Kong is known as a hard-working and productive market, more local people feel satisfied with the amount of leisure time they have outside work, according to results of a survey released on Wednesday.
The global average of work-life balance index is 120 that falls slightly compared to 2012 when it was 124. While Hong Kong’s score increased by five points from 117 last year to 122 now, it is significantly higher than some major developed markets, such as the U.S. (117), Australia (116), UK (109) and Japan (106).
Local women enjoy a better work-life balance with the score of 128, but local men feel less well with the score of 118.
The survey was conducted by the Regus, a multinational corporation that provides serviced office accommodation in business centers worldwide. It analyzed more than 26,000 respondents of business managers and employees from over 90 countries.
“The situation in Hong Kong is very surprising, comparing with that in Australia or European countries which have established life harmony laws, said John Henderson, chief financial officer of Regus in Asia Pacific. “The Regus Work-life Balance Index is not just affected by work hours or leisure time, but enjoyment at work and sense of achievement.
Even if local women get lower salary than men, they still feel enjoyable about work and life. Henderson added that it’s probably related to a traditional concept that women were family centers and they could receive comforts from family, while men had more stresses from work.
The largest decline of the index comes from China (136), which decreased 13 points compared with it last year. Henderson said China’s economy was slowing down and employers pushed their staffs to work harder than before. But there are still 69 percent of the employees being more enjoyable at work.
The survey also shows that after the worst part of downturn, business owners are more positive about work, with a higher index value (124) than employees (115). This positivity has not yet filtered though to employees in the same way and business owners need urgently address the issue.
Around 72 percent workers think flexible working including flexible work hours and workplaces is a win-win solution for both businesses and workers to improve work-life balance.
