Why Hong Kong firms should hire more moms

We've been suffering from 'mom-cession', according to Time magazine.¹ Married mothers are less likely to find a new job than married fathers, and likely to get paid less if they do find one.

This is a common trend around the world, and unfortunately figures from Hong Kong's Women's Commission show that the SAR is no exception: the most common reason for local females becoming economically inactive is 'engagement in household duties'. This is the case for a whopping 43.6% of all local females aged 15 and over, compared to just 1.7% of local males².

As organisations around the world marked International Women's Day on 8 March, trends like 'mom-cession' threaten the progress that's been made on closing the gender gap. Female participation in the workforce is key to increasing and sustaining GDP growth, managing skills gaps and reducing poverty.³

A large proportion of Hong Kong businesspeople seem to recognise this: 50 per cent of the local respondents in a recent Regus survey believed that returning mothers contributed valuable skills and experience to Hong Kong's labour market⁴. This was part of a global survey of over 26,000 businesspeople, and the global finding mirrored the Hong Kong one.

Both in Hong Kong and around the world, we seem to be talking the talk – but are we walking the walk?

In an earlier Regus survey published in 2011, only 32% of Hong Kong respondents said they were willing to take on working mums, citing concerns about such employees needing additional time off for family duties.

It's not so much a question of women hitting the glass ceiling as having the front door slammed in their face.

I believe this is short-sighted. My own experience is that working mothers are no different from other colleagues. If the job offers the right incentives, they are committed, productive and flexible. It's important to remember that many mothers, before they started a family, had successful careers, accumulating knowledge and skills that could benefit employers.

In this respect, they represent a huge untapped resource, so surely a wiser approach is for companies to adapt their policies to enable themselves to accommodate working mums.

After all, most of them already do this for working dads to a certain extent, and doing so would give them access to a resource that their more conservative competitors may not have.

So what do companies need to do exactly? The answer, according to the Hong Kong respondents in our survey, is adopting more flexible working practices by enabling people to work at times and locations that allow for their lives outside work.

In Regus' latest research, a massive 96 per cent of business people identified flexible working hours as the single most effective measure to help skilled women back into the workforce. Being able to work closer to home was also part of the solution, according to 92 per cent, along with near-site crèche facilities (86%).

Technology also has a role to play. Modern technology makes working from a remote location seamless and easy. It also makes it straightforward for managers to keep tabs on their employees' work rate and productivity. In our survey, 82 per cent of respondents identified the ability to communicate by video-conference as a family-friendly alternative to travelling to meetings.

In a world of tablets, smartphones, the cloud, video-conferencing and drop-in business lounges and flexible workspaces, it's not hard to see how people can work in ways that suit both their job and their family.

Nor are these new ways of working particularly an expensive or capital-intensive. In fact, they can actually save businesses money by making them more productive and increasing the pool of talent they are able to access.

It seems to me that, instead of shunning working mums, businesses' best interests would be better served by updating their management practices and attitudes to keep up with the times.

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¹The motherhood penalty: we’re in the midst of a mom-cession”, Time, 17 August 2012.

² Regus, Mother’s Day, 2011

³ McKinsey, Booz, The White House Council on Women and Girls, The World Economic Forum 2011, ESCAP 2007 and Goldman-Sachs.

⁴ Women's Commission, Hong Kong Women in Figures, 2011