Employees of Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) can now take a six-month parental leave - with full repayment of their salary. The offer, which is valid worldwide, could be claimed by mothers and fathers with the birth or adoption of a child with retroactive effect from May and also applies to same-sex partnerships, said the Böblingen-based German offshoot of the US group on Monday. In this country, HPE employs around 2100 people; HPE was created in 2015 by splitting the Hewlett-Packard Group into two divisions. HP Inc. continues to lead the personal computer and printer business, HPE operates the enterprise customer business.
There are these parental benefit models
Based parental allowance
The basic parental allowance can be applied for by all new parents. It usually amounts to between 65 and 67 percent of the average net income of the last twelve months before birth - at least 300, at most 1800 Euro a month. If only one parent applies for parental benefit, it will be paid for twelve months. If the partner also takes at least two months off for the child, the period will be extended by two months. Single parents are entitled to regular 14 months. The basic parental allowance can be combined with the other two models.
Parental Benefit Plus
The Elterngeld Plus is particularly suitable for employees and self-employed people who want to work again by the hour or part-time after birth. They can then earn up to 50 percent of their previous salary without being charged to the parental allowance. For this, only half of the parental allowance is paid each month, but twice as long - ie up to 24 instead of up to twelve months. The performance was only introduced in 2015.
partnership Bonus
The partnership bonus should be selected by parents who share care for the child and work for at least four months in parallel between 25 and 30 hours a week. As a reward, the state gives them four additional parental benefit plus months. The reference period can be extended up to 32 months. However, the bonus must be paid back in full if the conditions are not met. This is already the case if a parent works just one week less or more than 25-30 hours.
The bid is mainly due to the attempt to retain highly qualified employees - and HPE can afford it: In the financial year 2018, the company's profits amounted to about 1.9 billion US dollars.
There is already a shortage of skilled workers in IT: In view of digitalisation, developers are currently in high demand. "Skilled workers are much scarcer today than they have been in the last decade, and it takes much longer to fill vacancies, and much more often fails," says labor market researcher Enzo Weber from the Institute for Employment Research (IAB). This increases the pressure on employers across all sectors.
In addition, the professional field has so far been extremely male dominated. Of the applicants for a position for IT specialists, only 15 percent are female, the industry association Bitkom recently found in a survey of more than 500 companies. 55 percent of the companies declared that they had set themselves the goal of increasing the proportion of women internally.
Many men are afraid of the career kink
A study by the German Institute for Economics has recently shown that fathers in Germany still take significantly less parental leave than mothers - which is mainly due to financial losses and concerns about professional disadvantages. The statutory parental allowance in Germany amounts to a maximum of 1,800 euros net per month (see box). HPE's HR director for the German business, Ernst Reichart, said they wanted to motivate employees to work in the company "by helping them align their careers with their family lives." If employees make use of the offer, they will only receive money from HPE for the first six months of parental leave. State benefits do not apply for this period, but can be obtained in case of longer parental leave.
One can "motivate young people for a while with poor wages in a smart and trendy working environment while keeping happy", judges labor market researcher Gerhard Bosch from the University of Duisburg-Essen by reference to start-ups, media companies and architectural firms. "At the latest, when the child's question, it's over." At the same time, if you have talent and are reasonably in demand with your qualifications in the market, you will not be able to be fobbed off for too long with a low salary without significant additional benefits.
According to a new poll, only two percent of women and three percent of men occupy their careers. For 65 percent of women and 56 percent of men, the family is the most important thing in life, as the survey by pollster YouGov on behalf of HPE revealed. Only three percent of 18-24 year olds denied the question of whether they would later take parental leave or have already taken parental leave. For people between 25 and 34, the proportion is ten percent.
At SAP, all employees return from parental leave
Other companies in the industry advertise with family-friendliness: In the case of the software group SAP, the approximately 21,000 employees in Germany are even free to decide when they work from where. If possible, they should come to the office only once a week. In addition, the company offers nursery and kindergarten places, parent-child offices and special payments after the birth of a child. An SAP spokesman says the parents' return after parental leave is 100 percent. At the technology company Microsoft, mothers receive a premium for the birth of a child in this country, fathers are allowed to take six weeks paid special leave.
Labor market researcher Bosch says that such offers could, above all, afford companies that could influence their prices through innovative products or a strong market position. In other industries - such as social, care or hotels and restaurants - the situation is not so luxurious. Although there is a shortage of skilled workers, salaries and benefits are still comparatively low.
