Corporate Communications

It has many advantages for you to know the wishes and needs of your employees well. Basically, whoever asks, wins! Feedback from your employees allows you to check how successful your efforts have been so far, where there is a need for optimization and what further measures are required. It makes perfect sense to conduct employee surveys when developing new family-friendly measures. Surveys can also help to evaluate the development of offers and to ask about wishes. It is crucial that words are followed by deeds.

After a survey, it should be clear that you are starting to implement the required measures. Focus on transparency here and communicate the survey, its results and the subsequent implementation of measures openly. In this way, you will gain and retain the trust of your employees.

Company contact persons for the topic of family and career are an important point of contact for personal questions relating to work-life balance - provided they are known in the company and can provide competent information on company measures and the topic in general. Employees from the HR department or the company's family officer are suitable contact persons, as are trusted employees. The inhibition threshold for addressing sensitive topics is often lower with them than with a manager or supervisor.

Company parties promote togetherness within the company. You can use celebrations specifically to get to know and involve your employees' families. If parenting employees can bring their family members along, you save them the trouble of organizing private childcare for the duration of the party and at the same time signal your appreciation for your employees and their families.

Flyers and brochures are a good way of communicating family-friendly offers. Internally, they can be handed out as part of staff appraisals or meetings. If there is an in-house daycare center, foyer or canteen, you can also display the information material here. All company contact persons should also be provided with appropriate materials on the subject of compatibility so that they can hand them out if necessary.

In addition to traditional notice boards, an electronic intranet or an employee app can be used within the company to provide information about family-friendly measures. These channels not only provide a suitable platform for the dissemination of bundled information, but can also facilitate access to local and regional offers. It is important that the communication platforms - both online and offline - are maintained, regularly updated and advertised internally.

In order for the individual compatibility of family and career to succeed, personal discussions with your employees are the most important form of communication. During employee appraisals, you regularly have the opportunity to inform employees about tailor-made offers from the company or to develop new offers together. Employees should also be given the opportunity for an informal exchange if individual solutions are required - for example, before the birth of a child, when returning to work after parental leave and when a family member becomes a carer. Initial contact via an official company contact person is recommended for coordination purposes.

Employee meetings are a good opportunity to anchor the topic of family and career in the company. Make family-friendliness a regular item on your agenda. This sends out an important signal that reaches all employees directly.

Large companies in particular can use newsletters to disseminate offers and information on the topic of work-life balance. It is advisable to focus on personal experiences and success stories from employees' everyday lives. This is the easiest way to reach and convince employees.

Compatibility requires a certain degree of commitment. Established mission statements can serve as an excellent guide for both managers and employees. New or updated, they also often provide an opportunity to communicate about the compatibility of family and career. This makes the importance of family friendliness and work-life balance in the company visible.

The behavior of managers has a direct influence on corporate culture and the working atmosphere. How you behave towards employees, what you say or don't say, is an important part of internal communication. Ideally, you should be a role model and set an example for your employees in terms of balancing work and family life. If line managers reject such measures themselves, they send a signal of a lack of acceptance and prevent the development and anchoring of a family-friendly corporate culture. Yet it can be very easy to set important signals for compatibility through small gestures and steps. Just one encouraging sentence can have the effect that employees are happy to talk and take up offers.

Not only in marketing, but also in the search for new employees: personal recommendations are often more effective than advertisements or simple job postings. Employees who are convinced by their own company and its offers to improve the work-life balance can become ambassadors for it. As so-called "corporate influencers", they can share the benefits of your company at information events, at trade fairs or on social networks and review portals, for example. Recruit employees as ambassadors for specially produced image films on your company website, for example.

An interview is not only a good opportunity for applicants to present themselves. You can also use the opportunity to communicate the company's key benefits to the outside world and position yourself as family-friendly. Ideally, the good impression will be passed on.

Flyers and brochures are very suitable for communicating family-friendly offers. Externally, they can be distributed at information events or trade fairs, for example. In addition, all company contact persons or official ambassadors who communicate the topic of work-life balance externally should be equipped with appropriate materials so that they can hand them out if necessary.

Your website is your company's best business card and one of the first points of contact for interested applicants. The more family-conscious and target group-oriented you present your commitment to family and career, the better you can stand out from the competition and turn your family-friendly offers into an important competitive advantage.

Because family-friendliness is not only an issue for companies, but also an important location factor, more and more regional networks are emerging. They are a good platform for presenting yourself as a family-friendly company, obtaining specialist information and benefiting from the experience of other companies.

Information about your company is spreading faster and faster today via social networks and review portals. In particular, a good work-life balance is a key competitive advantage that is often communicated to the outside world by employees via these channels. Honest and authentic opinions from employees can spread a positive image of your company. You should therefore be open to this and monitor corresponding offers and critical reviews.

Job advertisements offer a good opportunity to highlight your company's family-friendly activities, benefits and special offers. Ideally, you should place the ads across various media - online and offline - in order to reach as broad a group of people as possible. This allows you to stand out from the competition for qualified employees and stand out from the crowd.

A large number of certificates offer you the opportunity to have your family friendliness checked and awarded and to highlight it as part of your public relations work. Competitions also offer the opportunity to put your own offers to the test and to advertise with an award. The "Success Factor Family" network provides more information on audits and certificates relating to work-life balance.