Coronavirus: Companies Support Families (4th Quarter 2020)
The special questions in the fourth quarter of 2020 explored the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on the labor situation. The particular focus was on the development of pay and components thereof. Moreover, the participating companies indicated whether, and how, they supported families with children in ensuring the provision of childcare.
Despite the difficult situation, companies still made special payments in 2020, even stating that, on balance, these payments were higher than those in 2019. This year, however, the special payments are expected to be reduced in many cases.
During the coronavirus pandemic, families were faced with the challenge of having to find childcare – a challenge they still face today. Many companies are helping families in this predicament. Options such as working from home, staggered working hours, and special leave proved particularly popular.
Remuneration and Special Payments
Despite the difficult situation, 79 percent of companies continued to make special payments in 2020. In 52 percent of companies making special payments, the amount of the payment was unchanged from the previous year, while 29 percent paid out more to their staff and 19 percent less than in 2019. Special payments planned for 2021 are down slightly (75 percent) and, generally speaking, the amount of these payments looks set to be lower than in 2020. Survey results show that only a small proportion of personnel managers expects wages to fall on average. Meanwhile, 41 percent of survey participants stated that wages will remain constant in 2021 and 30 percent of personnel managers expect an increase in wages of up to 2 percent. According to the responses, pay for unskilled workers is expected to remain constant in almost one in two companies. On the whole, more specialist and managerial staff can look forward to a salary increase.
Corporate Support Services for Families
Families faced extraordinary challenges during the lockdown. In many cases, children were unable to attend school or childcare facilities, with many kindergartens and daycare centers offering only emergency places. This posed enormous challenges for working parents in particular. In addition to carrying out their professional duties, they had to arrange for childcare. Although the number of sick days allotted for children was doubled, the ruling came into effect only this year. However, many companies also offered employees with children a number of options to enable them to juggle both tasks. The results of the survey show that 78 percent of companies introduced staggered working hours or regulations allowing staff to work from home. These alternatives were well received in two-thirds of companies. Moreover, two-thirds of companies offered their employees with children the option of taking special leave. Staff in 43 percent of the companies accepted this offer. The other childcare support measures included in the survey were offered considerably less frequently – and effectively used even less. Employees very rarely took advantage of referrals to childcare facilities, digital childcare services, or extended corporate childcare programs.
For the most part, there are only minor differences between the economic sectors regarding the support measures available for employees with children. By contrast, in many cases the size of the company is the decisive factor influencing the various support measures. Staggered working hours are possible in nearly all companies with at least 500 employees, with this option actually being used in most of the companies. The same is true for allowing staff to work from home – 97 percent of companies with 500 employees or more have introduced regulations to this effect. Just 3 percent of companies with at least 500 employees do not currently make provision for working from home but plan to do so in the future. Small companies with fewer than 50 employees are the least likely to have arrangements for working from home (70 percent).
Special leave has been taken in 37 percent of small companies and is available, but not used, in a further 25 percent. Four out of five large companies offer the option of special leave – employees in two-thirds of these companies have actually taken advantage of this solution. Extended corporate childcare programs and referrals to childcare facilities tend to be more widely available in small companies but are more likely to be used in large companies. Although 28 percent of companies extended their in-house childcare programs, only in 3 percent of companies was this service actually utilized. For companies with at least 500 employees, corporate childcare facilities were extended only in 19 percent of the companies surveyed, yet this extended program was used in 9 percent of companies.
Small companies are also more likely to offer referrals to childcare facilities than large companies. Here, too, it can be seen that this service is used more frequently in large companies (16 percent) than in small ones (1 percent).
