The Gap:
Type of Gap: ...at senior management level
We want to foster a corporate culture in which men and women can fully contribute and reconcile career and private life. With a broad range of work-life related measures, we aim at raising the number of women in management positions and to address changing expectations of men regarding work and life.
The Practice:
Type of practice: Work environment, work-life balance
Through a comprehensive work-life program, we shape a modern work culture centering around time and place flexibility and personal freedom. Through our work-life policies addressing executives and employees, we allow for flexible working models, foster individual part-time options and e-mail-free weekends.
Women benefit in particular from individual parental leave options and maintaining contact to the enterprise as well as offers for limited project work, further education and a step-by-step reintegration during and after parental leaves. Through massively extending our child care facilities, we ensure that career and family can be reconciled effectively.
Metrics:
We measure the success of our Work-Life Program by consistently monitoring and controlling the utilisation of our offers, such as flexible and part-time options used by executives and employees, use of parental leave offers and the demand and load factors of child care facilities.
Implementation Date:
Deutsche Telekom had long-standing work-life-related measures in place before introducing the Work-Life Policies in mid 2010. Our Work-Life Program is not a set of temporary measures but is continuously extended and implemented in a sustainable manner.
The Success:
Few months after introducing our Work-Life-Policies, a rising number of female and male managers request and make use of flexible work-options. The proportion of men in parental leave rose to 29% which is above Germany’s average (Quarter 2, 2011). 28 managers have taken part-time. Over 70 managers signaled their interest.
Success factors:
- Commitment of the Management Board and executives
- Internal marketing pushing utilisation of offers provided
- Growing number of role models
Barriers:
- Face time culture
- Concerns that flexible working negatively affects careers
- Some decision makers not yet fully backing time flexibility