HZB has its career and family certificate renewed: New agreed targets for the next three years

On 29 June 2015, Iris Gleicke, Parliamentary State Secretary of the Federal Ministry of Economics and Energy, awarded the HZB the “berufundfamilie” certificate (career and family). So certified, the research centre has officially been a family-friendly employer since 2011. The certificate is highly respected among chambers of commerce, associations and in politics, since it attests to the fact that the certified company has truly organised its working conditions to be more family friendly.  In the first three years, the HZB created many structures that contribute towards better long-term reconciliation of career and family.

The success of these measures has now been confirmed by the renewal of the certificate. But this does not mean the HZB will rest on its laurels: Its task now is to ensure that all employees are aware of the family-friendly structures and that they truly make use of them. The project manager for the certification process at the HZB, Anja Seehrich, explains: “In the re-auditing phase, we want to optimise the introduced measures even future over the next three years and establish them as a lived corporate culture.” It is especially important in this phase, she continues, to sensitise the managers more strongly to the issue and gain their active participation.

Reconcilability of career and family, however, is an important concern not only for employees with children. The HZB has therefore left the definition of the term ‘family’ intentionally broad: Family is where one takes responsibility for another. “It is important to us that our reconcilability efforts are not only directed towards child care. In an ever-aging society, many of our employees are faced with the challenge of looking after dependent relatives. This topic concerns everyone; while many have children, we all have parents,” Anja Seehrich says.