Work-Life Balance
As the term “Work-Life Balance” implies, work is only part of life. Any successful company continually faces the challenge of finding the right balance between work and private life for its workforce. The right balance brings benefits to employees and the company alike, enhancing employee satisfaction at the same time as reducing absences and improving productivity.
Flexible working-time models
The Volkswagen Group offers its employees many opportunities to combine professional and family life. Various part-time and shift-work models are available in both the production and service sectors. Parents have the possibility of taking up to eight years’ leave to bring up their children, with a guarantee of re-employment. For those returning to their careers we provide a seminar on the topic of “family management and work”. This offers comprehensive information on legal and company aspects and helps motivate employees to return to professional life.
Child care for employees
Individual care solutions for children have been available via a child care exchange on the Volkswagen employee portal since 2006. The exchange, established on the initiative of the VW Women’s Advancement team, offers flexible individual solutions. Parents can find care facilities for their children and nannies and babysitters can find work unbureaucratically.
Harmonising work and family life is also a top priority at the Group’s Audi subsidiary. The crèche facilities available at Ingolstadt are to be expanded in autumn 2007. At the Emden plant too, more attention is now being paid to the balance between work and family life. Since May 2007, emergency child care has been available to all employees needing care for their children during working hours as a result of unforeseen circumstances.
Creative employment solutions
Employees without children also have their own ideas of the ideal balance between professional and private life and wish employers to take their needs into consideration. In response, we have been offering all our employees creative employment solutions with flexible, individual working time models for some years now. Employees can reduce their working hours at any time in line with their statutory rights to part-time employment.
Since 1997, the Volkswagen Group has also offered its employees in Germany the chance to invest part of their wages or working-time assets in “time asset bonds”. Employees can then shape their retirement on the basis of the balance in their time asset bond account. The possibilities of phased early retirement have also been extended. In 2006, phased early retirement was offered to employees born in 1954 to 1954 in parallel to severance pay.