A worthwhile investment
Work-life balance: for parents, and mothers in particular, this means first and foremost to manage the difficult balancing act between child rearing and business appointments. But also those who are taking care of family members are faced with the challenge of reconciling family- and job-related duties. More and more employers have come to acknowledge the importance of a family policy that is mindful of the various family and life phases of their employees and offer them support. As does IAB.
In 2009, IAB was certified as a family-friendly institute by the “audit workandfamily” management tool. In 2012, IAB was re-audited, and in 2015, it underwent the “Consolidation” re-auditing process. After successfully completing the dialogue process in October 2018, IAB’s long-standing continuous commitment to a personnel policy that is family-friendly and aware of different life phases was recertified. That certification is now permanent.
IAB offers a variety of measures
In the past few years, IAB has taken several steps to support its workforce with regard to a healthy work-life balance through longer contract terms and a structured process governing maternity leave, parental leave, and the return to work, for example. Additionally, there are manifold individual ways to distribute one’s own working hours. Moreover, IAB offers a diversified range of childcare options tailored to individual needs in cooperation with other departments of the Federal Employment Agency administrative centre. Such options include the organisational service for children and care as well as holiday care programmes and an allotment of places at crèches and pre-school playgroups.
IAB used its second re-auditing to develop suitable approaches which help maintain the institute’s positive attitude towards the work-life balance and to continue to support its employees’ personal work-life balances.
“workandfamily”
berufundfamilie Service GmbH open was founded in 1998 by the non-profit Hertie Foundation. Its central offer consists of the “audit workandfamily” (“audit berufundfamilie”) certification for all private companies and public institutions and the “audit family-friendly university” (“audit familiengerechte hochschule”) certification for universities of applied sciences and universities. Both audits are considered strategic management tools which provide custom productive solutions for a better work-life balance. Currently, berufundfamilie Service GmbH counts more than 1,800 certificate owners from the fields of economy, science, and public administration among its clients. The Federal Minister of Family Affairs is the patron of “audit workandfamily”.
