The Austrian Ministry of Labour, Family and Youth has awarded 77 INTERSPAR Hypermarkets, including Maximarkt locations, with the quality mark ‘berufundfamilie’ (‘work and family’). The INTERSPAR central office has carried the ‘berufundfamilie’ quality mark since 2014. This quality mark recognises organisations that strive to ensure a family-friendly working environment with a good work-life balance.

Organisational policies that can support a good work-life balance include parental leave management, flexible working hours, and family-friendly training and professional development.

Studies show that a good balance between work and family life is decisive in employee satisfaction. Employees who have a good work-life balance are often more satisfied and change employers less frequently.

Quality mark ‘berufundfamilie’

The quality mark audit defines measures offering added value to employees over a three-year period. At INTERSPAR and Maximarkt, a project group consisting of central office employees set the working environment goals in cooperation with the INTERSPAR works council, the INTERSPAR Board, and an external auditor.

Work-life balance

“More than 45% of our employees work part-time. For most of them and many full-time employees, balancing work and family life is a daily challenge. Therefore, it has always been a priority for us to create family-friendly conditions in our company”, said Johannes Holzleitner, Managing Director at INTERSPAR Austria.

INTERSPAR has implemented many measures to improve the compatibility of work and family life, including flexible working time models, maternity leave management, information on the topics of family, manager training to support family-conscious measures, and numerous preventive health measures.

Shortened training for INTERSPAR team members

In cooperation with the Austrian Chamber of Labour and training provider BFI Salzburg, INTERSPAR recently launched a seven to ten months retail training for INTERSPAR employees without a vocational qualification.

Training periods count as working time and are adapted to the employees’ duty rosters. Cansu Görgülü, a team member at the INTERSPAR Hypermarket in Vienna, is currently undergoing such training. A valued colleague, Cansu Görgülü is a great example of how family, career, and training are reconciled at INTERSPAR.

“I have been working at INTERSPAR for ten years now. In the meantime, I got married and had two children. I always thought it was too late to follow a training. But recently, my manager told me that I could complete my apprenticeship in just a few months. A great offer, which I gladly accepted”, explained Cansu Görgülü.

Read more on training and career development at INTERSPAR Austria here.

Source: SPAR Austria

Read more news from SPAR Austria.

About SPAR Austria

The origins of SPAR in Austria date back to 1954, but the current SPAR AG was created in 1970 when the original founding families joined with other regional wholesalers to form SPAR Austria AG – a 100% privately owned Austrian company.

With licences granted by SPAR International, ASPIAG (Austria SPAR International AG) has developed SPAR in Slovenia, Hungary, Croatia, and Northern Italy. With sales of €8.3 billion and impressive growth of 16%, SPAR Austria became the market leader in the Austrian grocery trade during 2020, after being a market growth leader for over a decade.