We offer a range of benefits to help employees manage professional and personal commitments for a healthy work-life balance. In various regions, we have created a progressive and family-friendly parental leave framework. For instance, at the start of 2017, we implemented a consistent approach to parental leave in the Asia Pacific region so that we no longer differentiate between male and female parents, but instead take a gender-neutral view that takes into account primary and secondary caregivers. A minimum duration of parental leave is assigned to each of these roles. In the UK, we harmonized continued pay during parental leave for male and female employees, ensuring a consistent and gender-neutral approach.
We assist employees returning from parental leave, for instance in finding suitable childcare. In certain locations in Germany, we offer childcare places with accredited external professionals. Furthermore, working parents can make use of free advice and placement services (e.g. emergency care, au pairs, day care, nannies, and domestic support) offered by partner organizations. In India, for example, we partnered with respected childcare providers as of July 1, 2017, also contributing to employee childcare costs.
In Germany (excl. Postbank), we offer a range of flexible working options—from part-time, to close to full-time, as well as job sharing and remote working schemes. Using dbZeitinvest, our personal flextime account, employees can also save up to one year of overtime for a longer period of leave or a reduction in working hours. More than 6,000 employees currently use dbZeitinvest.
We have adjusted annual leave allowances in several locations. In the UK, annual leave increased from 25 to 30 days (effective Apr. 2018). For DBOI India, we matched the leave provided by our other entities, increasing it from 21 to 25 days (effective Jan. 2018).
We recognize rising pressures on employees to take care of dependent family members, while honoring their professional commitments. In Japan, the bank now covers 50% of the cost of up to 200 hours of care for dependent parents via external providers effective January 1, 2017. In Germany, we work with a partner to provide comprehensive advice and placement of regular and emergency services to employees caring for close family members. Those wishing to care for their relatives themselves may reduce working hours or take leave for up to two years, which exceeds that stipulated by law.