Do you know there are more girls than boys graduating from university in Hong Kong? Yet we are seeing only 50.8% prime working aged women in labour participation? Why? What are the reasons making Hong Kong women being well educated and not working?
I was one of them. When my daughter was born, I decided to leave my decent career in Finance and joined this large unpaid labour force of stay at home mothers. For the first four years of my parenthood, being there for my child(red) when I was most needed was very precious. I treasured every second seeing them have their first spoon of purée, take their first baby step walking and say their first baby word speaking. Although they seemed to be not knowing anything at all, being the primary caretaker with them by their sides is most important moment for their growing journey.
Yet I missed the actions and momentums at workplace. I missed the simulation and critical thinking when taking challenges from work. I missed the interactions and chitchats with colleagues and clients. After four years, I decided to get back to work and it was not easy.
While I missed the actions, would I want to pick up the same level of works and stresses before? While I missed the simulations, would I want to get back to the same hours again? While I missed the interactions, would I still want the same level of engagement at work? I cannot speak for all the professions but I can confess I would not want the same remuneration package as before as I was not ready to get back to the full actions and I knew I was not ready to perform at the same level.
I was not alone! That is why I built Womentors, to build better workplaces for both companies and professional women. Having been through the whole year of pandemic, companies know that they need to provide flexibility in order to retain talents to build sustainable businesses. They also need to stay nimble and proactive to deal with the ever changing challenges. On the other hand, there are millions of women, mostly mothers, who had forced to leave work because of the increasing pressure from the year long home schooling and accelerating home caring responsibilities. This big pool of talented women is a valuable workforce for businesses in Hong Kong. Can there be an interim solution to help capture these talents to stay in the workforce and be engaged in a level playing field.
Building a sustainable business almost means creating a workplace that allows their employees to perform their best in a well balanced manner. Womentors is established to provide solutions in all aspects of sustainability including ESG framework and reporting, employee engagement program, b corp certification support to sustainability and women leadership training. We believe that companies can do best when their employees are at their best.
This is a new revolution in talent engagement and we are committed to be the driving force to push forward to build better workplaces for companies and professionals. Are you ready?
