Benefits and work-life balance: What matters to you?
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- Note: The benefits described here depend in part on the site, the job performed and/or the contractual relationship
Benefits and work-life balance: What matters to you?
Volkswagen offers you a wide range of benefits for harmoniously combining your professional and private life. We help you maintain your work-life balance with attractive benefits, fair pay, flexible working models and the ability to work remotely. Take advantage of exclusive employee conditions, develop your potential and take care of you and your loved ones’ well-being with our family and recreational offers.
You matter to us. What matters to you?
Financial security
Flexibility
What matters to you? Are you looking for a work-life balance that really works? Us too! A harmonious balance between work and leisure is good for your well-being, health and quality of life. Our flexible working time models give you more opportunities to organise your day without neglecting your family, friends and hobbies. We are dedicated to giving you the flexibility you need to balance your professional and private life.
Flexible working hours models
Working hours at Volkswagen are governed by the relevant collective bargaining agreements and generally amount to 35 hours per week at present. Sometimes, of course, work volumes may be higher, or a meeting might take longer than expected, or you really want to stay and finish something, or you simply want to come in later or leave earlier occasionally. That’s why we have agreed trust-based working hours for our employees.
In addition, as part of your flexitime model, you decide for yourself how you spread your working hours.
Mobile working
We want to offer you the best possible balance between your professional and private life. That’s why you can agree with your manager on working remotely some days, for example at home. In accordance with statutory and collectively agreed regulations, you can organise and spread your working hours however you like between 6 am and 10 pm. Naturally, the basic requirement for working on a mobile basis is that your duties permit it.
We believe it is important to maintain a balanced relationship between remote work and the workplace that is appropriate to the job, not least in order to foster communication and identification as part of the team.
How many days can I work remotely?
The extent to which mobile work is possible can be found in the job descriptions.
Paid sabbaticals
Have you ever wanted to put your job on hold to take time for yourself, your family and friends, or to build a house, finally complete a project, volunteer or take a trip around the world? With the My Time Off [Meine AusZeit] scheme, Volkswagen offers a self-financed sabbatical of three to six months, during which you still receive 75% of your salary. To do this, Volkswagen pays you upfront during your sabbatical. When you return, you balance your account by waiving 25% of your salary for 9 to 18 months at full working hours. After that, you receive your full salary again.
The advantage of the scheme is that you do not have to make expensive savings before your leave of absence, so you are more flexible in terms of time and can better plan your finances.
Flexible retirement
Plan and start your retirement flexibly – we offer you great opportunities to enjoy your retirement earlier and plan more securely for exciting new projects in your life.
Pension provision
Changes in the statutory pension insurance make it increasingly advisable to have additional cover. The company pension scheme is an important part of this. In addition to your salary, Volkswagen offers you an attractive company pension scheme where we finance the basic pension and what is known as the first contributory pension (Beteiligungsrente I). On top of this, you have the opportunity to increase your company pension by deferring part of your gross salary towards the second contributory pension (Beteiligungsrente II).
Time asset bond (Zeit-Wertpapier)
You can use the time asset bond to retire early from active employment and thus reduce the amount of your life you spend working. You can create time assets for this purpose from ongoing or one-time earnings. The more you earn, the earlier you can take paid leave of absence directly before reaching retirement age.
Note: The above information presupposes permanent employment without a fixed term.
Job sharing in management positions – more work-life balance for managers
Job sharing at Volkswagen opens up new pathways in the world of work, especially for managers who want to harmoniously combine their work and private life.
In this innovative model, two managers share a position with reduced individual working hours. They work together and combine their different strengths to achieve common goals. This way, we show how leadership and work-life balance go hand in hand.
Recreation & family
What matters to you? Time and space for your loved ones? Simply recharging your batteries? No matter what matters to you, leisure time clears your head and keeps you fit. That’s why Volkswagen makes sure you get enough.
Holidays and days off
At Volkswagen, all employees who are subject to the framework agreement on employment conditions get 30 days of paid leave a year.
Individual regulations apply to certain groups of employees. For example, students in vocational training combined with university studies get 22 days for a five-day week, and as an intern, you get 20 days per calendar year if employed for more than six months.
And so that you can enjoy the end-of-year holidays to the full, you get the whole day off on 24 and 31 December.
Compensation for overtime
Our flexitime models allow you to organise your working time independently. If you work longer than the standard 7 hours per day calculated from the 35-hour week, you can compensate for this time by taking hours or even whole days off. However, for health and safety reasons, you should not make a habit of deliberately accumulating overtime in order to then take time off.
Childcare
Making sure your children are well cared for while you are at work is important to us. At our sites in Hannover, Emden and Kassel, we offer childcare near the workplace, which means either close to the plant entrance or actually on the Volkswagen premises. The childcare hours on working days vary from nine hours (Kassel) to 13 hours (Hannover & Emden).
Children‘s holiday care
You can have your children looked after during the school holidays in our holiday childcare programme. Depending on the site, the programme offers one week’s supervision during the Easter, summer and autumn holidays. The children are taken on exciting excursions during the week through the production facilities, the company fire departments, the printing plant etc. and also enjoy educational activities and games and well as outdoor activities and programmes on the topic of sustainability. Meals are also provided.
Seminars for parents
Having a child often changes life fundamentally. Because we want to support expectant parents, we offer information events regularly. During these events we provide information on maternity and parental leave and on how Volkswagen specifically supports achieving a work-life balance.
You also have an opportunity at the events to share information with other expectant parents who work at Volkswagen and build your own personal network.
Parent-child offices
We also offer special parent-child offices at some Volkswagen sites, such as the Software Development Center in Hannover. If a child needs to be looked after at short notice and mobile working is not an option, these offices provide a place for children to play, sleep or do their homework while their parents can take part in the normal office routine and get on with their work without worrying.
Care of relatives
The need to look after a family member often happens when you least expect it. Life-changing decisions have to be made in the shortest possible time and nursing care organised. You can take leave of absence from work straight away for this purpose for up to ten days. And if you want to look after your relative yourself, you can take partial or full leave of absence from work for a longer period of time.
We also hold information events to help better plan and manage this challenge.
Development & career
What matters to you? Whether it's for training, specific career planning or working abroad – we count career development among our core competencies. In addition to promoting talent, we help everyone to reach their full potential.
Health & well-being
What matters to you? Your health and well-being are important to us, because they are essential to your quality of life. That’s why at Volkswagen we provide specific measures and offers to maintain and improve them.
Free fitness facilities on site
We have our own gyms and rehabilitation centres offering a variety of exercise courses at our sites in Wolfsburg, Braunschweig, Salzgitter, Kassel, Emden and Hannover. Online exercise programmes even allow you to join in from wherever you want.
In addition, various advisory services are offered at the sites as well as self-organised sports groups.
Medical care
For all occupational health issues as well as acute and emergency care, our Volkswagen sites have several health centres and outpatient clinics with expert company doctors and occupational health staff. Our colleagues from Volkswagen health department also provide advice on business trips abroad, vaccinations and first aid training.
Healthcare provisions
The Volkswagen “Check-up” programme is designed to help all employees stay fit and healthy in the long term. The programme includes state-of-the-art medical examination procedures which not only ascertain your current health and fitness, but also identify possible health risks.
The Volkswagen check-up consists of various diagnostic and medical examinations as well as a thorough consultation and discussion of the examination results with the company doctor.
Ergonomics offers
In addition to ergonomic workstations, at Volkswagen we also offer ergonomic advice and support from therapists in the rehabilitation centres and gyms at the Volkswagen sites. These offer advice on topics such as the basic principles of adjusting tables and chairs correctly for screen work, or how to stay active and mobile while carrying out sedentary work.
Social coaching
Social coaching at Volkswagen is a caring and voluntary advice service that aims to offer targeted, individual and professional support to all employees. Particularly in a workplace context, a confidential framework is the fundamental requirement for effective advice.
The task of the social coaches is to help people in problematic personal and social situations – such as mental and psychosocial stress, addiction and financial emergencies – with support, advice and accompaniment, and by liaising with internal and external specialist services when necessary.
The purpose of the consultation is to clarify the situation and develop possible individual solutions. Specific measures can be agreed and further assistance initiated if necessary.
On the preventive side, the social coaches at Volkswagen organise information events on various topics according to needs.
Directly on site: Audi BKK
“From us, for us”: Our health partner Audi BKK specialises in the needs of the Volkswagen Group’s workforce and offers superior benefits at an attractive contribution rate. The company health insurance fund, which is available to employees across Germany, has service centres at all the production sites of the Volkswagen, Audi and MAN Truck & Bus brands, offering tailor-made advice and services.
Welfare fund
The welfare fund is an employee solidarity fund. The benefits are financed from the contributions received and a company contribution. Participants can receive subsidies from this support fund in certain cases of financial burden.
