Work and family

Work and personal aspects

At RWE Dea, harmonisation of work and family constitutes an integral part of our management principles. We allow our performance to be judged by how well our employees are able to reconcile their work and family life.

RWE Dea has earned the seal of a family-friendly employer: the non-profit organisation Gemeinnützige Hertie-Stiftung awarded us the certificate “audit berufundfamilie“, which is sponsored by the German Federal Ministry for Family Affairs. The audit evaluates family-friendly measures already implemented by the Company and investigates potential new measures capable of achieving an even better balance between the interests of the Company and its employees.

In additional to the statutory provisions, such as protection for expectant or nursing mothers, parental allowance and parental leave, we also support our employees in achieving a healthy work-life balance through flexible working hours, family support services and numerous other services related to health, sports and leisure.

Parental leave and child care

Child or career? We go to considerable lengths to ensure that our employees never need to ask themselves that question. With the children’s day care centre at City-Nord in Hamburg, RWE Dea together with other companies in the immediate neighbourhood has created a model for success in this area. The kindergarten, established based on a private-enterprise financing model and run by a public institution, is unique: the companies share the construction costs, and in return are guaranteed day-care places for a period of 25 years. The kindergarten provides flexible care for 100 children close to the their parents’ workplace.

We do not merely comply with statutory provisions and enter into standard Company Agreements; we also offer our employees additional benefits. For example, we provide the option to extend the statutory three-year parental leave period by one year. More-over, we do not compel our employees to take parental leave in a single block. Instead, they can spread their parental leave entitlement over the first eight years in the life of their child. This measure makes it easier for parents to be close to their child during vari-ous stages in the development of their growing child.

We assist our employees in their return to work following a family-related absence by offering mothers and fathers on parental leave the opportunity to participate in advanced education measures on a regular basis. This allows them to stay in touch with their work sphere during their period of leave. We organise seminars tailored to suit specific needs as a means to fill any gaps resulting from the period of absence.

Taking care of family

We know that, in addition to their work, our employees also have the obligation to take care of important private matters – from day care mothers or a suitable kindergarten place through to domestic help or a service provider looking after family members in need of care. For this reason, we initiated a cooperative venture with the family counselling agency BuK, offering our employees information and counselling free of charge. The agency renders assistance in determining child-care needs on a case-by-case basis, as well as helping in the search for, and selection of, suitable child-care facilities, kindergartens and schools. The agency is also the point of contact for anyone responsible for the care of family and relatives, in addition to their work responsibilities.

Working hours and part-time work

RWE Dea has flexible working hours. A flexi-time model allows compensation for over-time. Moreover, we offer our employees different types of part-time work, including the option to two employees to share one job.

Leisure and health

We actively promote healthy living and the well-being of our employees. We place special importance on maintaining a healthy work environment, for example, by ensuring that workplaces are of satisfactory standard in terms of ergonomics. We offer our employees counselling and medical assistance through our in-house Medical Services. In addition, we have launched a comprehensive programme of seminars dealing with health-related topics, and we arrange for preventive treatments to restore and stabilise health. We also provide special allowances, for example for dental prostheses. The Company’s social counselling service renders assistance in solving personal crises or in dealing with difficult situations or conflicts in the workplace.

Measures to ensure physical health and well-being are also in place: as well as being part of a nationwide cooperative venture with a fitness studio chain, RWE Dea also maintains its own sports hall and gym in the City Nord office building in Hamburg and provides employees with the opportunity to join one of the many sporting groups.