SEPTEMBER 2022

WEPs IN ACTION

Contents
1. Context
2. Action

PRINCI PLE 2Treat all women and men fairly atwork – Respect and support humanrights and non-discrimination.

3. Challenges
4. Results
5. Recommendations

CASE STUDY: Trip.com Group
BUILDING A FAMILY-FRIENDLY WORKPLACELESSONS LEARNED• Organization-wide training among managers and otheremployees is key to ensuring buy-in for new policies,
including those that are gender responsive.

• Monitored trials can help establish a business case topave the way for new policies.

CONTEXT
Trip.com Group Limited is a one-stop travel service provider
in China with about 33,732 employees, comprising the travel
platforms Trip.com, Ctrip, Skyscanner, and Qunar. Across its
platforms, the Group enables travelers around the world to makebookings for travel products and services by aggregating travelrelated information and resources.

1 ┃ Company: Trip.com Group

Family commitments have long been a challenge for working
parents, particularly for women, who, according to the latest
available data in 2018 from China National Bureau of Statistics,
spend 2.5 times as much time on unpaid care work as men. Theheavy and unequal responsibility of care and domestic work fallingto women is one of the main causes of inequality in economic
status. In line with the WEPs, Trip.com Group implemented aflexible working policy and hybrid work model to help improvefamily care burden and employee wellbeing.

ACTIONS
To help address the pressure on women whilst encouraging men
to share family responsibilities, Trip.com Group implemented a
hybrid work policy in March 2022. Work-from-home arrangements
in many Chinese companies have been offered only to women,
but Trip decided to pilot it to all employees as a way to show thatboth men and women have to balance work and family.

The latest trial was conducted by Trip.com Group between August2021 and January 2022 and involved over 1,600 employees acrossa broad range of roles and departments. Among the data collected
were the impact on employee performance, the impact on teamproject progress, the wellness and feelings of employees, and theimpact it had on family and work life balance.

Before the full launch of the policy, the Group conducted several
trials, across different departments, in which employees would
work partly in the office and partly remotely. Before and after eachtrial, employees and managers were asked to provide feedback via
a survey.

Following the survey result data from the trials, a hybrid work
policy was implemented across the Group. All employees can now
apply to work remotely on Wednesdays and Fridays. By giving
the remote-working option to all employees including men, it
signals to employees that both men and women have family
responsibilities.

TIMELINE
20172020

2021

A hybrid work trial is heldwith customer service
employees

Trip.com Group signs the WEPs

2 ┃ Company: Trip.com GroupA larger hybrid work trial isheld with staff from otherdepartments

2022

The hybrid work
policy is implementedcompany-wide

CHALLENGES

Biased managerial decision-making:As teams may be split between remote
and in-office workers, managerial
decision making might be unconsciously
biased towards in-office workers, which
can impact promotional opportunities.

When proposals for the 2022 hybrid
work policy were made, there werevarying concerns from managers, whowere greatly apprehensive about work
efficiency and impacts on departmentalperformance. This included issues of time
management, work productivity andeffective communication between teams.

The Human Resources (HR) department
implemented a large-scale training to improve
employees’ understanding of flexible andhybrid work policies, including approaches tovirtual relationship building, how to develop
and maintain a remote-compatible culture,and how to motivate employees. HR also
further advised all colleagues on setting
personal hybrid work goals, optimizing work
efficiency and improving communication.
After the hybrid work policy was implemented,
a relatively flexible approach was allowed
for managers so that each business unit andfunctional department could determine how
to best implement it. For example, supervisors
were allowed to adjust the application of thepolicy for those in their team according to thesituation and employee performance.

Information security:
Taking corporate and customer
information outside of the office intranet
can be a risk to users and businesses.

3 ┃ Company: Trip.com GroupTrip.com Group introduced internationallyrecognized information security technology
to ensure data security and protect users’
personal information, even when employees
work remotely. The technology involves
strict verification processes and minimizes
the risk presented by any person, device, orsystem inside or outside the network.

SOLUTION

CHALLENGE

Managerial concerns:

Information technology was used to support
equal opportunity for employee growthand career development, including training
platforms and digital tools for performance
evaluation and feedback. Tracking
performance with a more transparent systemaims to reduce the risk of subconscious bias
across the company.

RESULTS
A preliminary hybrid work survey was conducted in March 2022,
one week after implementing the policy, and found that hybrid
working was popular among employees as they embrace a betterbalance between work and family: 75 per cent of applicants chose
to work from home on a Friday to increase the time they spent
with family. The data shows that female employees who applied in
the first week accounted for about 48.8 per cent of the number ofapplicants, while males accounted for 52.2 per cent.
One male employee reported that the biggest advantage of themixed office modality is that employees have “more opportunity
to visit parents”. “On Friday, we can handle business related
concerns outside of the office, and conduct conference calls on thego, giving us the whole weekend to spend with our parents. ”
Another female employee said, “In my last trimester of pregnancy,
my managers found out I had back pain, and helped to arrange
work from home. This was a big help – it eased my care burden
and improved my well-being.”

Jennifer Cao, head of the hybrid office project and Head of theGroup's organization and talent development and corporate
culture, said: “The hybrid office can effectively improve thehappiness of employees and help working parents balance workand family, while male employees working from home can also
help family members share parenting responsibilities.”
Evidence has also indicated that the hybrid work model is good forbusiness at Trip.com Group. A randomized survey during an initial2010 trial found that employees’ productivity increased by 22
per cent when working from home, with a 50 per cent reductionin employee turnover and greater reported job satisfaction. TheGroup’s most recent hybrid work trial in August 2021 showedno drop in productivity and a significant reduction in turnover.
Participant survey data found that 93 per cent of employees feltthat they used their time more efficiently and over 75 per centreported feeling an improvement in their wellbeing.

RECOMMENDATIONS• The success of a hybrid work model relies less on the type ofindustry it is employed in, and much more on having the rightorganizational culture and management approach.
• Hybrid working carries a risk of creating unconscious bias inrelation to employee evaluation and promotion opportunities.
To overcome this, companies should adopt a system that

equally monitors and responds to the per formance ofemployees working in-office and remotely. Equal access totraining should also be ensured for hybrid and non-hybrid
working employees to allow for equal growth and careerdevelopment opportunities.

THE ROLE OF WEPs
The WEPs helped to strengthen Trip.com Groups’ approach by providing guidance on promoting gender equality and women’s
empowerment in the workplace. The Group has pledged to continue developing a family-friendly workplace in line with the WEPs.

4 ┃ Company: Trip.com GroupPrinciple 1

Establish high-level corporate leadershipfor gender equality.

Principle 2

Treat all women and men fairly at work– respectand support human rights and nondiscrimination.

Principle 3

Ensure the health, safety and well-being of
all women and men workers.

Principle 4

Promote education, training and professional
development for women.

Principle 5

Implement enterprise development, supply chain
and marketing practices that empower women.

Principle 6

Promote equality through community initiativesand advocacy.

Principle 7

Measure and publicly report on progressto achieve gender equality.

#WeEmpowerAsia
weps.org
weps@unwomen.org

Funded by:

Produced by:

Women’s Empowerment
Principles@WEPrinciples

United Nations’ Women’s
Empowerment Principles@UNWomenAsia

In support of:

DISCLAIMER: The views expressed in this publication are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of the European Union, UN Women or the United Nations

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