The ECCT’s Family Friendly Alliance (FFA) hosted its annual summit for the second consecutive year with the theme Population & Talent Sustainability Best Practices. The half day event began with opening remarks by Minister Without Portfolio and former minister of the Ministry of Health and Welfare (MOHW) Dr Chen Shih-chung (行政院 陳時中 政務委員), Dr Lue Jen-der, Deputy Minister of the MOHW (衛生福利部 呂建德 政務次長) and ECCT CEO Freddie Höglund. This was followed by a series of presentations by guest speakers, representing members of the FFA. Speakers were introduced by FFA Co-chair Hideko Ikeda, while fellow FFA Co-chair Saxon Chen moderated the closing panel discussion, which included senior executives of multinational corporations operating in Taiwan.

In his opening remarks, Minister Chen Shih-chung noted that just two generations ago, the average number of children per family in Taiwan was over seven. The fact that Taiwan’s birth rate has dropped to one of the world’s lowest shows that action to date to address the decline has been insufficient. He expressed the view that the responsibility of raising children needs be a national priority and shared rather than putting all of the burden on young parents, especially women. He pushed back at the notion that subsidies don’t work, saying that they do work if they’re high enough and if combined with other measures to ease the burden on parents. He mentioned that besides the high costs of raising children, parents worry about their children getting a decent education, noting that there are only enough places for 15% of children in Taiwan’s top schools, which is unfair for those who don’t get a place, indicating that the standard of education in other schools needs to be improved. He also spoke about the need to focus on maintaining health starting at a young age and keeping up good habits, like regular exercise, in order to age well and remain healthy as long as possible. He added that the government would need to spend much more on healthcare as well as aged care in the future.

In his remarks, Deputy Minister Lue said that the government is aiming to increase the number of childcare facilities by 30%. It also plans to revise laws and regulations to increase working flexibility and leave allowances for young parents to help ease the burden.

In her presentation, Amy Hsin, Head of Staffing & Outsourcing for Adecco Taiwan (辛文麗 台灣藝珂派遣及外包事業部總經理) spoke about global trends of talent and population sustainability. She noted that since the pandemic many companies have started to cut back or cancel options for employees to work remotely. However, this is being resisted by employees, especially parents who need to take care of children. She also spoke about how digitalisation and Artificial Intelligence (AI) are increasingly being used by companies. While most employees are adapting to the trend, a small portion of them are worried about their jobs being replaced by AI. This may be misplaced as previous advances in technology have improved productivity by letting machines do the grunt work and creating more interesting and innovative work for humans. However, for this to happen with AI, employees will need additional training to allow them to make the best use of AI in their work. According to Adecco’s survey, while the majority of corporate leaders are ready to employ AI experts, only about a third of them are willing to invest in training for their employees. Leaders will have to invest in training if they want employees to realise their full potential in the digital era. Hsin also noted a change in values and aspirations of the next generation. Generation Alpha (those born after 2012) have so far shown little interest in working in traditional organisations.

In her pre-recorded presentation, Emily Tiemann, Manager of Health Practice for Economist Impact, spoke about global low birthrate challenges and evidence-based practices. Economist Impact, the research arm of the Economist, has been cooperating with Merck since 2018 to study and produce research about birth rate trends and their consequences. The reasons for falling birth rates are now well known and the consequences for society are now becoming more apparent, such as a shrinking workforce, which in turn leads to lower tax revenues for the government and strains on social welfare programmes (especially healthcare and pensions) due to fewer contributions. Increasing the fertility rate therefore would therefore begin to reverse these negative impacts. While governments are adopting a number of policy levers, such as fertility and childcare subsidies, flexible working options or more generous leave allowances, it is difficult to measure the success of any single policy. Moreover, there are variations in what works between countries and even in different regions within countries. Economist Impact has adopted a star rating system for certain policies and has found that fertility allowances, generous maternity leave and the availability of childcare get the highest ratings. She concluded that there is no single silver bullet solution, early action is needed and a long-term view should be adopted.

In his presentation Howard Shiu, Partner of Baker & McKenzie, & Co-chair of the ECCT’s HR committee (許修豪 國際通商法律事務所合夥律師) gave a legal and policy perspective on family friendly and talent-oriented workplaces. He stressed the broader implications of a declining birth rate on the labour market. Without enough employees, simple things we take for granted now, like being to go to a restaurant, will not be possible. He expressed the view that providing employees with childcare is a way to attract talent. He echoed the view expressed by Minister Chen that raising children should be elevated to a national responsibility and not just left to the responsibility of parents alone. The government and corporations need to assist families by providing paid and unpaid leave. While Taiwan’s gender equality law has helped to improve gender equality, it is not really intended to address the low birth rate and does little to do so. He went on to list some of the issues in the ECCT’s HR position paper aimed at creating family friendly workplaces, such as easing the rules to hire foreign domestic workers, increasing flexibility of working arrangements and increasing incentives for companies to provide childcare facilities in their workplaces.

In her presentation, Amy Ho, Founder & Chair of CommonWealth Education Media & Publishing (何琦瑜 親子天下 創辦人/董事長兼執行長) spoke about her group’s Family Friendly Workplace Award, which recognises the best practices adopted by companies in Taiwan. She cited some of the best practices being adopted by companies. Besides subsidies for giving birth and childcare, some companies are allowing parents to adjust their schedules to enable them to pick up children from school or other activities. The best companies not only offer leave but have ways to encourage young mothers to take the leave (it was noted that many women are afraid to take advantage of generous leave allowances because of fears that it will negatively affect their career prospects). CommonWealth has given awards to companies which reported high utilisation of maternity leave benefits. Companies with high levels of women in senior management positions were also recognised since these companies serve as role models for young women to show that they can be confident that having children will not harm their career prospects.

In her presentation, Emily Hsia, CHRO of the Hon Hai Technology Group (or Foxconn, 夏國安 鴻海科技集團 人資長) shared some of her company’s family friendly policies. She noted that the company has weekly “double E” meetings for senior managers. The double E refers to EPS (earnings per share) and ESG (Environment Social and Governance). While the company insists that the focus on business (EPS) should be the priority, ESG issues should not be ignored. Among other benefits, the company offers medical check-ups for pregnant employees and childcare subsidies for young parents.

The event concluded with a panel discussion moderated by Saxon Chen. Panellists were Cindy Chen, SVP & Head of The Adecco Group East Asia/ Regional Head of Adecco Perm, APAC & ECCT FFA Co-chair (陳玉芬 藝珂人事顧問股份有限公司東亞區資深副總裁/ 亞太區正職人才招募事業部負責人/ 歐洲商會友善家庭聯盟共同主席); Lilly Chiu, Human Resources General Manager, L'Oréal Taiwan; (邱琍婷 台灣萊雅股份有限公司 人力資源關係處總經理); Lee Jing-ying, HRBP for the Merck Group in Taiwan (李京穎 台灣默克集團 人力資源策略夥伴) and Rachel Lai, Senior HRBP for SHL Medical (賴秋芬 瑞健醫療 資深人資策略夥伴).