“The ‘family-friendly university’ audit certificate is regarded as a mark of quality for a strategically planned work-life balance policy. “I am very grateful to our Family Services team for their ongoing commitment,” says Prof. Dr Tatiana Zimenkova, Vice-President for International Affairs and Diversity at Rhine-Waal University of Applied Sciences. The current measures to support a balance between work, family and private life at the university are very diverse. For example, the university has established a Family Services Office, secured a quota of nursery places close to the Kleve campus, and has partnerships with pme Familienservice for childcare services, as well as with benefit@work for support with caring for family members. In addition, the university offers family-friendly working hours, flexitime and comprehensive working-from-home arrangements. Staff at both campuses can book parent-child rooms and borrow portable play boxes for their own offices. Furthermore, the university has appointed social support officers (SAPs) whom staff can contact regarding any personal or professional challenges they may face.
Following three successful re-audits, the university successfully completed the dialogue process last year. The dialogue process is open to employers who have been pursuing a strategically planned, family- and life-stage-conscious HR policy through the audit for at least nine years. The aim of the dialogue process is to maintain the high standard of the family- and life-stage-conscious HR policy and to capitalise on the potential for optimisation in selected areas. The university has also set itself the goal of further increasing its family-friendliness in the future, for example through a family-friendly organisation of its governing bodies.
