The Award Scheme

Introduction

Family Council

The Family Council is an advisory body to the Government. It provides a high-level platform for examining family-related policies and promoting a culture of loving families in the community.

Family-friendly Employment Policies and Practices

Family-friendly employment policies and practices have become increasingly popular and important. These policies and practices are intended to help employees balance their work and family lives, thereby bringing benefits to both employers and employees with better morale, enhanced working relationships and reduced staff turnover.

The policies and practices can be broadly classified into the following five categories:

(a) Work-related Policies and Practices
that allow employees to manage their time with due regard to their family commitments, e.g. flexi-working hours, flexi-working place, flexi-working arrangement, flexi-rostering, job sharing, etc.

(b) Employee and Family Care Arrangements
that accommodate the family or personal situation of the employees, e.g. child care or elderly care arrangement, compassionate leave, maternity leave/paternity leave beyond statutory requirements, family care leave, employee counselling services, occupational safety and health measures, etc.

(c) Employee and Family Benefits and Support
that bring direct and/or material benefits or assistance to employees and/or their family members, e.g. scholarships for employees' children/grandchildren, insurance coverage for family members, complimentary offer of/discount on corporate goods or services, emergency financial support, etc.

(d) Employee Activities
that promote work-life balance and family core values, e.g. company trips, social gatherings, special family engagement events, such as parenting seminars, family recreational activities and "Bring-your-family-to-work" day, etc.

(e) Breastfeeding Policies and Practices
for breastfeeding employees to express breastmilk in the workplace in order to continue breastfeeding their children.