The University of Greifswald wants to support employees with family responsibilities. On this page, you will find information about various offers regarding the compatibility of career and family.
Pregnant women who are employed, have special protection during their pregnancy and after giving birth. It is irrelevant whether the pregnant woman is employed on a part-time, full-time or assistant contract.
To protect mother and child, mothers are not allowed to work six weeks before and eight weeks (12 weeks in the case of multiple births) after the birth of their child/children. Mothers also receive special protection if they are subject to exceptional workloads, or if they work with hazardous substances (see ‘Maternity Protection in the Lab’). The employee can waive the prohibition of employment that starts six weeks prior to birth by handing in a written notification to their employer. The prohibition of employment that lasts for eight weeks after the birth is compulsory for everyone.
If the birth is premature due to a medical or other reason, the days of maternity protection that have been missed prior to birth shall be added to the period of maternity protection following birth.
During maternity protection periods, mothers also have holiday entitlement. Periods during which the mothers cannot work due to employment bans pursuant to maternity protection laws are counted as employment periods. Therefore, others are entitled to holiday during these periods. Holiday entitlements that still exist at the beginning of the employment ban can also be used after the end of the employment ban or during the current or following year. The amount of holiday cannot be reduced due to employment bans pursuant to maternity protection laws.
The employer is unable to terminate the employment contract from the beginning of the pregnancy up until four months after the birth, apart from in very few exceptional circumstances.
Employees who work in a lab must be aware that working with certain substances is not allowed during pregnancy and breastfeeding periods. Please inform your line manager immediately so that appropriate protective measures can be taken, if necessary.
The same applies to the breastfeeding period.
You will find detailed information about the most important aspects of maternity protection in the brochure ‘Maternity Protection – Guideline’ provided by the Federal Ministry for Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth (BMFSFJ). Important regulations regarding your rights and duties, health protection at work during your pregnancy and breastfeeding periods (especially with regard to working hours and health and safety regulations), protection against unlawful dismissal and possible maternity benefits are explained in the brochure.
You can obtain the brochure from the Family Service office or access it online at: https://www.bmfsfj.de/bmfsfj/service/publikationen/leitfaden-zum-mutterschutz/73756 [de]
The respective period of a fixed-term contract (excluding contracts limited due to external funding) will be extended by operation of law if desired by the employee. For example, the extension covers periods of parental leave pursuant to the Bundeselterngeld- und Elternzeitgesetz (Federal Act on Parental Allowance and Parental Leave) as well as periods during which mothers are banned from work pursuant to the Maternity Protection Act and during which they did not work.
The permissible period of a temporary contract in the qualification period before or after obtaining a doctorate will be extended by two years per child, if the doctoral student looks after one or more children under the age of 18. However, an existing employment contract will not be renewed automatically. Instead, it is a possibility to extend the length of the qualification period.
ElterngeldPlus with a partnership bonus and flexible parental leave entered into force on 1 January 2015. Parents who would like to return to work ahead of schedule on a part-time basis, receive parental benefits for a longer amount of time. Parental leave of up to 24 months can also be used between the third and the eighth birthday of the child. The new regulation applies to children who were born after the 1st July 2015.
On the following pages, you will find information on ElterngeldPlus, and with the help of the parental allowance calculator you can plan periods and financial matters for the first few months with your child.
Links
Elterngeldplus [de]
Parental Allowance Calculator [de]
There are some possibilities for members of staff at the University of Greifswald to make their working hours more flexible. Eine Nachfrage im Referat Personal oder ein Gespräch mit dem Vorgesetzten sollen helfen eine passende Lösung für jede Situation zu finden, die sowohl beruflichen Anforderungen als auch familiären Verpflichtungen gerecht ist.
Courses provided by the University Didactics Department, the Graduate Academy or the Mentoring Programme convey important methods for mastering professional and family-related tasks. Furthermore, the courses aim to support the university’s family-friendly culture. Current offers can be found in the respective programmes.
The Federal Ministry’s Familienportal provides information about state family benefits. Family benefits are financial aids for families, such as child benefit or parental allowance. They also include regulations and laws to support families. These include laws on maternity protection or parental leave. In the section ‘calculator and applications’, you will find help for calculating family benefits, as well as application forms which you can download.
Infrastructure
In order to make waiting periods for children more enjoyable, e.g. if their parents have to attend administrative meetings, or if children have to be taken to work for short periods of time, they can have fun with the portable toy boxes, which are situated at different locations in the University. They can easily be rolled from one office to the next.
The boxes have been made available in part by donations from University employees. At the moment, you can find portable toy boxes for children in the Waiting Room for the Students' Registration Office and the Academic Counselling and Course Enquiries , in the International Office, the Central Examination Office, in the Planning and Facility Management Division, in the Institute of Physics, in the Institute of Mathematics, in the offices of the Family Service, in the Office of the Rectorate and in the Department of Art. The locations have also been marked on the map ‘Familienfreundliche Hochschule’.
If further facilities would like a toy box or other University members would like to make donations, please feel free to contact the Family Service.
If you have to take your child to work for a short while, you can borrow both a portable toy box and also a large KidsBox from the University’s Family Service.
This can be rolled to your workplace and transforms it into a parent-child room in no time at all. The Box contains lots of toys for children up to primary school age, diverse hygiene articles and offers sleeping and baby-changing facilities.
You are also welcome to use the KidsBox for conferences.
There are four KidsBoxes at the University of Greifswald, they are financed by the DFG projects TR 34, RTG 1870 BacRes, RTG 1947 BiOx and RTG 2010 RESPONSE and located as follows:
- Waiting Room for the Students' Registration Office and the Central Examination Office, Rubenowstraße 2
- Feeding and Baby Care Room, Friedrich-Ludwig-Jahn-Straße 15 A
- PFIFF, University Medicine Greifswald, Ferdinand-Sauerbrauch-Straße
- Zoological Institute and Museum, Johann-Sebastian-Bach-Straße 11/12
The University’s Familienwohnung (Family Apartment) offers emergency childcare for children between the ages of three months and twelve years. For exceptional circumstances - e.g. during conferences, exams, excursions, if regular childcare has been cancelled, outside the kindergarten’s opening hours or at weekends - members of staff, students and University guests can take advantage of flexible childcare that can be arranged at short notice and is provided by trained professionals. Further Information
There are 15 locations where you can change your baby’s nappies at the University and University Medicine. Signs at the building entrances point you in the right direction. The Studierendenwerk (Student Services) has positioned baby changing tables in both Mensas (cafeterias).
The locations are:
- Main building | Domstraße 11, Entrance 2
- Audimax | Rubenowstraße 1
- Faculty of Theology | Am Rubenowplatz 2/3
- Department of Economics and Business Studies | Friedrich-Loeffler-Straße 70 | Lecture hall
- Educational Science/Psychology | Franz-Mehring-Straße | Lecture hall
- Biochemistry | Felix-Hausdorff-Straße 4 | Lecture hall
- Institute of Physics | Felix-Hausdorff-Straße 6
- Central University Library | Foyer
- Lecture hall 'Kiste' | Makarenkostraße
- Center for Functional Genomics of Microbes (C_FunGene) | Friedrich-Ludwig-Jahn-Straße 15 A
- Departmental Library Campus Loefflerstraße
- Lecture hall former gynaecological clinic | Wollweberstraße 1
- Mensa Berthold-Beitz-Platz
- Mensa at the Ernst-Lohmeyer-Platz 5
- Main building of the University Medicine | Ferdinand-Sauerbruch-Straße | on the ground floor and in the areas: Corridor 5, Corridor 7, Corridor 9, Corridor 11 and House D