Balancing Personal and Professional Life
Our identity as an employer includes our belief in supporting our employees in balancing their personal and professional lives. We want to strengthen their identification with the company and our position in the global competition for qualified personnel. To achieve this, we have a wide range of offerings aimed at employees in different phases of life that accommodate the growing demand for flexibility in when and where they work. These include flexible working hours, part-time employment, remote working, and time off options that provide the necessary flexibility to care for children or family members. We are constantly working to expand these options and increasingly support the effective use of digital solutions here.
Our flexible tools proved helpful during the coronavirus pandemic. They help our employees to master the increased challenges around work and personal life during the pandemic and will continue to provide flexibility. To integrate the positive experiences from the surge in remote working into our working culture, we have developed global guiding principles and a framework for the future of work.
Regional initiatives specifically address the needs of our employees at a local level. For example, flexible co-working spaces in the Rhine-Neckar region in Germany were tested in pilot projects and a framework for potential future uses was developed.
Our Work-Life Management employee center in Ludwigshafen, Germany, (LuMit) offers a number of services under one roof: childcare, fitness and health, and social counseling and coaching offered by BASF Stiftung. Services were adapted so they could continue during the coronavirus pandemic based on the current coronavirus laws and local restrictions. We also provide employee assistance programs at other sites in Germany and around the world to help employees overcome difficult life situations and maintain and restore their employability. Social counseling and coaching also enabled employees and their families to receive extensive support during the coronavirus pandemic, for example by expanding telephone services.