2023-11-20 09:23:36
Many companies support their employees with so-called “corporate benefits” when it comes to family issues. But this doesn’t happen just out of kindness towards the employees.
Berlin.
Fertility treatments, subsidies for child care and adoption, frozen eggs: more and more companies are supporting their employees with family aspects.
The German pharmaceutical company Merck is helping its employees financially to fulfill their desire to have children by contributing to the costs of fertility treatments – for women and men, regardless of marital status. In addition to fertility tests, which usually cost a three-digit amount, the offer also includes so-called artificial insemination – here the average cost is in the mid-four-digit sum. “With this new offer, we can support our employees in a phase that takes a lot of energy and can be very stressful,” says Khadija Ben Hammada, Chief Human Resources Officer at Merck.
The international management consultancy Kearney from the USA also recently decided to provide support in the area of family. In addition to expanded parental and part-time regulations, the new benefits also include monthly subsidies for childcare as well as financial support if you want to have children or adopt, as the company announced. The aim is to provide employees with “even better support in balancing family and work and to contribute to social change,” says Marc Lakner, Managing Director of Kearney in Germany.
Among other things, Kearney supports childcare with up to 500 euros per month. Fertility treatments and adoption are subsidized with up to 40,000 euros. Lakner makes it clear that they also want to explicitly support both parents. “We would also like to encourage fathers to take a longer break to take on childcare.” Ultimately, many couples wanted to share family work equally. In general, they want to give their employees a better work-life balance in this way.
Employee retention measures
The two companies are just two examples of many. Overall, the proportion of companies that offer childcare in the form of company daycare centers or financial support has more than tripled since the beginning of the millennium, as research by the Institute for Labor Market and Occupational Research (IAB) shows.
Ann-Christin Bächmann looked into offering family-friendly measures for the IAB. It can be assumed that companies offer them “in order to appear more attractive to potential skilled workers and thus to be able to recruit well-trained people more easily, as well as to bind employees to the company,” says Bächmann. Their analyzes also showed that mothers return more quickly to companies that offer family-friendly policies after the birth of a child. In addition, the likelihood of a change of employer is also lower in this case. Khadija Ben Hammada from Merck also emphasizes: “Such offers of course also help to attract, retain and retain employees.”
For Regina Ahrens, social scientist and certified business mediator, this does not necessarily mean that employers can only have their own interests in mind and not also have good intentions: “One does not exclude the other.” Ahrens has been researching and teaching on the topic of work-family balance for more than 15 years and advises companies in conflict situations and on the development and expansion of family-conscious measures. “Basically, I would see it as a positive development that more and more employers are offering such measures,” she said in an interview with the German Press Agency.
Researcher advises a precise needs analysis
However, she has been observing for some time that the shortage of skilled workers is promoting this development. This is not fundamentally bad, as some benefits combine the interests of the company and the employees – a classic win-win situation.
But there are also measures where this is not the case. “Companies often simply adopt certain measures from others without paying attention to what their employees actually need,” explains Ahrens. After all, the workforce varies greatly depending on the company. A good example is the company daycare center. “If the average age of the workforce is mid-50s, that doesn’t make much sense.”
Another main problem is that some measures can also create pressure. “If a company makes it possible to have eggs frozen, many people are indirectly forced to do so and think: “Then maybe I should do that too.” It is similar with company daycare centers. Companies should therefore think carefully about which measures make sense for their workforce and ensure that this does not put pressure on employees. Ahrens sums up: “Basically, it is a positive development that more and more employers are dealing with the issue of family. But it must not be abused out of self-interest.” (dpa)
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