Examine the potential impacts of standard working hours on the property management practices in Hong Kong

Abstract

The government set up the Standard Working Hours Committee (SWHC) in 2013 and conducted several public consultations since then. An across-the-board policy of standard working hours (SWH) may come into effect in Hong Kong in the coming years. This dissertation draws on several impacts of SWH on the management practices in other countries and seeks to identify which the management practices would be replicated in property management industry in Hong Kong in response to the implementation of SWH. It is an empirical question that the SMEs will have different reactions on the property management practices, compared with the large companies. The large companies have abundant resources to deal with new regulations and refine their employment policy while the SMEs incline to maintain good employment relationship and ignore the compliance of the new rules and regulations. This dissertation would explore whether there are different responses from two types of property management companies in response to the SWH. This dissertation postulates that the government enforces the statutory level of weekly working hours at 44 hours and overtime pays at 1.5 times of basic rate in property management industry in Hong Kong. Questionnaires are distributed to property managers’ grade or above in order to study their responses in respect of change of property management practices after the potential implementation of SWH. Apart from the quantitative research approach, two professional property managers in a large company and in an SME overseeing the residential buildings in Hong Kong are invited to conduct an interview. In addition, a chairman of the Owners’ Committee (OC) in a large estate is invited to conduct an interview. It is significant to investigate the different opinions between the property managers and the OC through the comparisons of priority of implementation of property management practices in response to SWH. By studying the potential impacts of SWH on the property management practices in Hong Kong, it is hoped that the findings of this research can facilitate property managers to get prepared for the imminent legislation of SWH in terms of change of property management practices, and can provide insights for policy makers in formulating the policy of SWH.