Work-Life-Balance.

Many companies are challenged to consider in the planning process for working times not only current laws, labour contracts and their operative goals but also the time-related wishes of their employees. One can identify different types of employees which differ in their working time preferences as well as in the work load they have to deal with in their private lifes. Therefore, the working time configuration has to take the specific situation of the employees into account. Consequently, the process of the working time configuration becomes highly complex. But there are currently no tools available that allow decision-makers of a company to evaluate an intended working time model prospectively (i.e. before its realization) while taking dynamic aspects of their operations as well as the work-life balance of the employees into account. At best, the work-life balance of the employees is a key figure for the evaluation of a working time model but not a parameter during the planning ...

In the past years, people as a human resource has developed as a major factor of business success. But, access to highly qualified employees and managers is not secure because certain qualifications and committments have become absolutely scarce. Maintaining durable access to this resource therefore becomes a new strategic task and requires business organizations to adapt a Sustainable Human Resource Management (Sustainable HRM) which is systematically concerned with long-term HR measures human resource maintenance and reproduction. In this article, we explore how companies can counter proactively a potential shortage of highly-qualified employees and managers by implementing family-friendly HR practices and measures.