Flexible worktime systems create freedom
Work - life balance

Flextime models and annual worktime accounts
More than 40 percent of our non-managerial employees already work on a range of flextime models which enable them to decide relatively freely on the start and end of their working day. For employees where fixed working hours are a must, attractive annual worktime accounts help increase flexibility in the allocation of worktime. Managers at Bayer have maximum freedom in shaping their working hours.

Shift systems
Many of our production facilities operate around the clock. The various shift schedules have been developed on the basis of the latest occupational health findings to minimize the impact on employees’ biorhythms.

Teamworking in production facilities
At present, around 9,600 employees in some 120 production plants are organized on the basis of teamworking. Here, the conventional division of tasks has been replaced by process-oriented teams with far greater scope to organize their work themselves.

Part-time employment and teleworking
Part-time employment and the option of working from home when necessary enable employees to organize their worktime even more flexibly and are particularly suitable for employees with children. Around 14 percent of our employees already work on some type of part-time model and the proportion is rising. Bayer will continue to offer employees part-time jobs and teleworking in the future.

Childcare
Our commitment to childcare also helps employees combine work with raising a family. At its site in Leverkusen, Germany, Bayer has reserved places at four childcare facilities for children between the ages of two and 14. Single parents are given priority in the allocation of these 250 places.
At other sites in Germany, we cooperate closely with the privately run “Family Service” to offer our employees childcare facilities. The wide range of services offered by this advisory agency include structuring individual solutions for working parents, including skilled care for infants under the age of one.

Parental leave
Bayer also offers employees in Germany the opportunity to take parental leave to care for children up to the age of seven. That is well above the statutory minimum. To ensure such employees retain their skills and facilitate a smooth return to work at the end of this period, Bayer offers them opportunities to attend continuing education courses and to work for short periods to cover for absent colleagues. At the end of the parental leave period they can naturally choose to return to work on a part-time basis.

Click here for further information on how a young chemist has been able to combine a career at Bayer with raising a family.