Important Information for Leaders and Managers
UZH as a family-friendly employer
The University of Zurich explicitly promotes a culture of family-oriented leadership and supervision.
«Familie in der Hochschule» charter (in German) (PDF, 192 KB)
Managing work-life balance issues in your team
Use the following valuable tips to help you find a good solution for most situations.
Team recommendations regarding work-life balance:
If an employee is pregnant
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.
Contract extensions during parental leave
Contract extensions during parental leave
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). (Additional information on how fixed-term (e.g. project-related) employment contracts affect maternity leave can be found in the Fact Sheet Parenthood.)
If unpaid leave is requested and approved by the line manager following the maternity leave, the entire period of unpaid leave as well as the maternity leave would not be included when calculating the time spent at this stage of their academic careers. (Additional information on unpaid leave can be found in the Fact Sheet on Unpaid Leave).
Maternity allowance and maternity leave at UZH
According to §96 VVO, employees at the University of Zurich are entitled to 16 weeks’ fully paid maternity leave. This also applies in those rare cases where an employee does not meet or forfeits the conditions for receiving maternity allowance through the Swiss loss-of-earnings compensation scheme. This may result from their prenatal work situation or postnatal employment (see p. 4 of the fact sheet issued by the Information Centre OASI/DI, in German). In these rare cases, the employee receives their full salary during maternity leave despite the lack of maternity allowance payment to UZH. It is the responsibility of the institution, department or office to ensure continued payment of salary in these cases.
Mobile Working Model
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 credit
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