A new family room offers INM employees with children or relatives in need of care a further opportunity to reconcile work and family life – especially in the case of short-term care bottlenecks.
Parents know such situations: The nursery is closed because of strikes, the childminder is sick, the school has a bridging day. At very short notice you need another care for the child. In order to support its employees in such bottlenecks, the INM has now set up a family room. Like a classic parent-child office, it offers a workstation for parents as well as toys and other things for children. In addition, employees who care a relative can use the barrier-free room. “Here, for example, a parent who is no longer mobile can bridge the waiting time until an important appointment with a doctor,” explains Claudia Fink-Straube, head of the audit berufundfamilie project at the INM. Since 2012, the institute has been awarded the audit berufundfamilie certificate for its family-friendly measures.
The family room was financed with prize money from L’Oréal, the German UNESCO Commission and the Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard Foundation: The L’Oréal Foundation presented the INM scientist Malgorzata Wlodarczyk-Biegun with the “For Women in Science” Award 2018. The prize also included funds for measures at the INM that support the reconciliation of work and family life.