Work-life balance

Family and lifestyle

Good work-life balance and respect for diverse lifestyles are high priorities at Fraunhofer. The goal is to allow all employees to arrange their professional lives flexibly and in a way that is compatible with their personal living situations. Fraunhofer offers extensive support options for this, which undergo continuous further development.

Flexible working time models

Fraunhofer attaches great importance to flexible working time models that enable employees to adjust their working hours to accommodate their individual needs and life situations. This includes part-time models specifically designed to accommodate the needs of parents or employees with care obligations, along with work-from-home rules that make flexible workplace arrangements possible. This flexibility promotes work-life balance and helps employees optimally navigate the demands of both work and their personal lives.

Childcare

Fraunhofer actively supports its employees with childcare, offering a wealth of options to make it easier to achieve work-life balance. In collaboration with pme Familienservice, Fraunhofer offers emergency childcare that employees can use on short notice when other care options fall through. Fraunhofer also provides support in the form of parent-child offices and collaboration with daycare centers. These measures allow employees to pursue their careers secure in the knowledge that their children are being well cared for.

For details, please consult the specific institute: Fraunhofer institutes and research units in Germany

pme Familienservice

pme Familienservice is a key option offered by Fraunhofer to support employees across different life stages as they overcome individual challenges in their personal lives. This includes a wide range of assistance options for all employees, such as emergency childcare, support with caring for other family members and caregiving advice. The service also offers life coaching, which can help identify individual solutions for those facing personal or professional crisis situations.

Fraunhofer Family Logo

To establish a Fraunhofer-wide standard for supporting employees in reconciling the demands of professional and private life, a special quality seal is awarded to Fraunhofer institutes that offer exceptional opportunities for achieving work-life balance. The Fraunhofer Family Logo is awarded to institutes that offer their employees outstanding working conditions tailored to their family situation and phase in life, as a result of their great openness to their employees’ needs and of the support they offer for childcare, parental leave and returning to work. The requirements for attaining the Fraunhofer Family Logo are determined using comparable external certifications, such as the “audit berufundfamilie” (work and family audit). The assessment covers six areas that are key to achieving a good work-life balance, ranging from flexible working arrangements, childcare services and support for parental leave, right through to the use of Fraunhofer support services.