Life-phase-oriented personnel policy
Flexible and efficient: five tips for a life-phase-oriented HR policy
No one can leave their own age, personal life situation and needs at the company gate or office door - these circumstances accompany an employment relationship from the very beginning. Companies that value satisfied and qualified staff in the long term know this. They can make use of the concept of a life-phase-oriented HR policy, as it provides the best possible support and is a win-win situation for all sides.
With a life-phase-oriented HR policy, the focus is on the employee and their personal needs - needs that can change depending on the phase of life. Whether it's voluntary work or childcare, caring for relatives, a time-consuming hobby or a long-distance relationship - employees always have a life outside of work that makes its own demands.
The challenge for companies is to combine life and work phases in the best possible way. An effort that is not only worthwhile for employees: satisfied employees are more motivated, do not change employers as often, are sick less often and therefore contribute to increased productivity.
At the same time, the labor market must adapt to social change: The increasing number of women in gainful employment, together with changing role models, has pushed the issue of work-life balance to the top of the agenda. In addition, demographic changes due to an ageing population require a rethink: many employees care for family members and bear a great deal of responsibility in this area. Workforces are getting older and older, while young people are paying more attention to their work-life balance.
Five tips for practice
The aim of a life-phase-oriented HR policy is to provide employees with the best possible support and encouragement in each individual phase of their lives. The following tips provide an overview of possible measures and practical tips for implementing this concept.
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Carefully analyze the current situation and needs
First and foremost is an honest and careful analysis of the current situation in the company:
What is the status quo in your company at the moment?
What approaches are already in place?
Where is there a need for action?
Regular employee appraisals are your most important tool for assessing the situation and keeping it up to date. Here you can find out what phase of life your employees are currently in and which working model would suit them best. -
Flexibilize working hours and location
Make use of the entire range of instruments for flexible working hours. This is not limited to simple full-time and part-time models. With flexitime and core working hours, working time accounts, sabbaticals, job sharing and trust-based working hours, your company has a whole arsenal of models at its disposal that can be tailored to the individual needs of employees. The possibilities of remote working, which have been expanded by digitalization, increasingly allow for working from home, which can provide relief in the event of greater family demands, for example.
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Create flexible remuneration systems
If remuneration for work is kept flexible, employees can, for example, not have their salary paid out in full and thus build up reserves for a period in which they are unable to perform their full workload due to their personal life situation. Similarly, part of the salary or bonus can be exchanged for time.
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Offer flexible benefit systems
Offering employees specific additional benefits that they find helpful in certain phases of their lives is an important component of a life-phase-oriented HR policy. Being able to choose freely between different working models or offset vacation days allows more individual leeway. Tailored support with childcare, advice on care issues, offers for sports and health promotion or the provision of a company bicycle supplement the financial benefits.
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Build a corporate culture of trust
Create a corporate culture that gives employees the certainty that reduced resilience does not necessarily mean a career break. Such a corporate culture includes trust, transparency and reliability.
Where can we find help and advice?
The corporate program "Success Factor Family" provides impetus for employers to improve the compatibility of family and career, bundles information on the topic of family-friendly working environments and offers success stories and testimonials from family-friendly companies: https://www.erfolgsfaktor-familie.de/erfolgsfaktor-familie/ueber-das-programm/das-programm-erfolgsfaktor-familie-
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