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The University of Zurich explicitly promotes a culture of family-oriented leadership and supervision.
«Familie in der Hochschule» charter (in German) (PDF, 192 KB)
Use the following valuable tips to help you find a good solution for most situations.
Team recommendations regarding work-life balance:
If an employee informs you about their pregnancy, we recommend having a friendly discussion with them as soon as possible in order to clarify any open issues. You can find more information in the Fact Sheet Parenthood (PDF, 249 KB).
Use the Memorandum of Conversation on Parenthood (PDF, 208 KB) as a guide and to document the conversation. You can forward these documents to your employee before the conversation so they can prepare.
There is usually an extension until the end of the maternity leave period for holders of junior academic positions (doctoral candidates, teaching and research assistants, postdocs and senior teaching and research assistants) whose contracts expire; this applies even if they give birth several months after their contract would usually expire (§ 15 para. 4 of the employment ordinance of the University of Zurich).
Foreign employees may not meet the conditions for receiving maternity pay through the Swiss loss-of-earnings compensation scheme. According to §96 of the implementation ordinance of the employment act (VVO UZH), however, they are still entitled to receive 16 weeks’ paid maternity leave. In these rare cases, the department or institute in question carries the full cost.
Some flexible working options already exist at UZH, such as part-time positions and job-sharing. As of May 1, 2022, UZH introduced mobile working as a further working model.
Photo by Thought Catalog on Unsplash.