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Beginning in March 2020, office employees can apply to start and end work up to an hour earlier or later than the standard working hours, or can apply to work from home.
Towards the end of 2020, Hang Lung announced a set of sustainability goals and targets to be achieved by 2030 and specifically pledged to make wellbeing a priority. Six months into 2021, Hang Lung's just-published Sustainability Report discloses how the group's management approached the material sustainability issues and worked towards their ESG goals last year.
Read more: Hang Lung pledges to boost employees' health and wellbeing by 2030
Here are the highlights of the group's key initiatives that are tied with creating a sustainable talent pipeline, sustaining a healthy, inclusive and safe environment and promoting social wellbeing:
Employee benefits
In addition to existing benefits for full-time employees such as parental leave, life, medical and dental insurance, parking permits and various corporate staff discounts, to commemorate the group's 60th anniversary, Hang Lung introduced an additional day of full paid leave called Founder's Day Leave for employees in Hong Kong and Mainland China.
The group has continued its tradition to present internal awards to recognise those who exemplify the group's five strategies of sustainable growth and the four behaviours of the corporate culture for achieving sustainable growth. Three out of four winning initiatives are tied with the pandemic.
Upskilling employees
While over half of the group's training events went online, the group highlighted four key training initiatives in 2020:
- A wide range of webinars to build employees’ capacity to use technology, such as 5G and big data analytics, to enhance customer experience
- Customer service experience workshops for operational staff at eight properties in Mainland China to ensure consistency and high standards
- Hang Lung Management Conference to help executives keep abreast of the latest market trends
- Multiple virtual trainings in helping employees adapt to remote working during the COVID-19 pandemic
Diversity and inclusion
While for the period 2016 to 2020, the group reported about 40% of female executives in its ranks, they would like to improve this number further.
Age diversity is the group's other concern. As of 2020, the majority (70%) of employees were aged between 30 and 50, followed by people over 50 (16%) and under 30 (14%).
"On one hand, we are eager to attract young talent to build a talent pipeline to support our business expansion. On the other hand, we value the wisdom and experience of veterans in our workforce," the report stated.
What the group did is to ask departmental managers to discuss with employees who are close to retirement whether they are willing to extend service in the company, subject to departmental needs.
Employee Wellness
Beginning in March 2020, office employees can apply to start and end work up to an hour earlier or later than the standard working hours, or can apply to work from home upon obtaining approval from the direct supervisor. The group also increased the overtime basic hourly rate for operational staff in Hong Kong by 30% during the third wave of COVID-19 and redeployed internal staff and outsourced part of the frontline service to address the manpower shortage during peak pandemic period.
The group also launched Dress-Down Fridays to provide more flexibility on the dress code, except for employees required to wear uniforms.
In response to the pandemic, the group has been providing various free or discounted medical services to employees to safeguard their health. To boost social wellbeing, the company held a series of virtual activities under its employee wellness programme, such as webinars for the prevention of back pain at work and to improve stress management, as well as online funky dance and yoga classes.
Photo / PR Newswire
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