Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft
Work-life balance
Creating the right conditions for an ideal balance
To the same extent that our fields of research are determined by people’s needs, we take into account the needs of our employees in our work culture.
From our perspective, a successful balance between work and free time goes beyond the classical approaches to combining family and career. The Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft would like to give all employees the opportunity to introduce as much flexibility as possible into their working lives. Because our employees can only be free to develop their talents if they have a good balance in their overall situation in life.
Flexible working hours
For this reason, we offer flexible working models such as flextime or part-time work as well as organizational simplification measures — for example, in the form of remote working. Providing options for emergency childcare (e.g. in the form of a parent-child office) can also significantly improve the professional and family situation.
Family responsibility
Aside from employees with children, we are more aware of employees who have other family responsibilities, such as caring for relatives. For these employees too, we would like to offer custom flexibility options in terms of how their work is structured.
The options we provide for work-life balance:
- Flextime and various part-time models (including temporarily)
- Working from home
- Childcare support
- Support for active fatherhood
- Emergency childcare/parent-child office
For specific offers, please consult the institute concerned:
Fraunhofer Family Logo
In order to come up with best practices for institutes and a Fraunhofer-wide standard for reconciling professional and private life, a pilot project was run in which Fraunhofer institutes that offer exceptional opportunities for achieving work-life balance were awarded a Fraunhofer quality seal. The Fraunhofer Family Logo is awarded to institutes that offer their employees exceptional working conditions tailored to their family situation and phase in life, as a result of their great openness to their employees’ needs and of their support offers for childcare, parental leave and returning to work. The requirements for attaining the family logo are determined by comparable external certifications, such as the “audit berufundfamilie” (Career and Family Audit). It covers six topics that are central to implementing work/family balance, ranging from flexible working opportunities, childcare and parental leave support, right through to using Fraunhofer support offers.