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Current debates about the contentious issue of standard working hours are held against a backdrop of this incredibly wealthy city being known as one of the worst when it comes to providing a healthy work-life balance. It also has one of the world's greatest wealth gaps, with high numbers of hard-working people mired in poverty and a markedly declining birthrate. This commentary proposes far-reaching measures to address all these issues, which if implemented could result in Hong Kong catching up with other wealthy places, in terms of providing more supportive and fairer employee benefits.

Young married couples here are challenged to afford a home of their own, rather than living with parents. Both may have been demanding full-time jobs. The employment sector here is far from family friendly. In other places, an expectant mother can readily take a career break of several years, from pregnancy until the time her children start school. When she returns to work, she has the option of working part-time (school hours) so that she can be at home when her children are. Unpaid work breaks during the long school holidays are another valued concession, making it possible for a mother to raise her family while still holding a job. When added to more generous maternity leave and to the greater introduction of paternity leave, plus government-supported "starter home" availability for the newly married, these facilitators would combine to provide an environment where more children would be born in Hong Kong - and fewer of them would need to be raised largely by the family maid.

Hong Kong already has laws to protect those aged below 18 from working too many hours: The employer can be prosecuted if these maximum hours are exceeded. This creates an atmosphere whereby the boss takes active steps to ensure that the younger employees are not working over-long hours, even voluntarily. Would that a similar stance were to apply to their adult employees! Clearly, a fixed number of standard hours in a contracted working week (say, 40) could be better controlled if guaranteed overtime pay at time and a half were to be mandated for any hours worked in excess of 40 per week. This would encourage employers to assist their staff to complete work tasks mostly within their standard working hours. If an employee regularly needs 60 or 70 hours a week at work, then either he or she has too much to do (indicating that more employees are needed) or he or she needs employer-provided training in effective time management.

This time management training would aid the employee in setting priorities, delegating, planning for deadlines, postponing, avoiding distractions, avoiding unnecessary meetings, and limiting multitasking, to be able to make more effective use of work hours. Many an employee also cuts in to what is supposed to be work time by handling streams of messages, of a personal nature, while at work. He or she cannot then reasonably claim to be so busy at work that longer hours are needed at the workplace!

An absolute maximum permitted number of days of work per week without a day off (say, six), and a maximum number of hours allowed to be spent at work each week (say, 60), voluntary or required, could be legislated for and enforced, with the employer liable to prosecution if these maxima are exceeded. Flexible working hours systems have been working very effectively in many other places for decades; it is high time for this popular system to be introduced much more widely in Hong Kong, where it is so far rather rare to find.

Too many local employees take their work around with them 24/7, by being always available for work-related phone calls, text messages and emails, even when they are supposedly off duty. This fairly recent extension of working time is difficult to measure or control; but employers and employees need together to find ways to limit such constant interruptions to what is supposed to be down time.

The more enlightened employers, globally, contribute to having their staff at their best by offering pleasant coffee areas, subsidized employee canteens, and other congenial facilities to enable staff members to be refreshed, and to return enervated to their duties after a much-needed break. Only a few Hong Kong employers have so far seen the need for such provision.

Another glaring shortcoming in the employment scene of Hong Kong is that few employees will ever receive a monthly paid pension. The MPF scheme only provides "cash back" at retirement age, and that will generally be insufficient to sustain a long retirement in economic comfort. Employers and the government in Hong Kong need to work together, and to contribute together, to a proper pension scheme that will sustain their retirees in comfort and dignity once they have left the workforce. Many Hong Kong companies generate colossal profits. Those profits could more equitably be distributed - say, at a third share each to the shareholders, to senior management, and (in terms of pension provision and better other employee benefits) to the employees - whose work has generated those profits.

By introducing such measures, the Hong Kong employment scene could raise its game to a fairer and more benign level.