In-house daycare Westwing Wichtel supports work-life balance of team members
Munich, 18th October 2022. According to a 2020 study by the “Institut der deutschen Wirtschaft (IW)”, there is a shortage of around 342,000 childcare places for children under the age of three. At the same time, the demand is increasing: One in seven children at this age could not get a childcare place. To support its team members, Westwing founded its own in-house daycare Westwing Wichtel. With this benefit Westwing wants to support the workforce in balancing family and career for its teams.
Work-life balance at Westwing
Childcare is an important deciding factor also when it comes to the search for a job. Long distances between work and daycare and rigid time regulations at the facility makes the work-life balance complicated. Offering family-friendly benefits are very important to the corporate culture at Westwing. The opening hours of the company daycare center are based on Westwing’s company working hours. Even an exclusive babysitting service can be booked on demand and availability after 5 pm. Westwing covers the main costs for its team members and the parents only have to pay the official fees for public childcare and the catering allowance. Furthermore, it offers the Westwing employees great convenience and flexibility that otherwise would not have been possible and shows how to live family friendliness in the company.
“Westwing Wichtel helps me balance my career and personal life. I know many parents not only struggle to get a spot at a daycare but also commute long distances everyday between home, daycare and work. Knowing my child is close to me and I can be there any minute, makes it easier for me to concentrate on business during the day. And what I love personally: During my lunch break, I always get a little update from Westwing Wichtel on my phone,” Christina Mayr, Interim Chief Marketing Officer at Westwing.
The concept of Westwing Wichtel
The daycare was founded in May 2020, to offer its team members the opportunity to bring their infants of the age between 0 and 3 years to Westwing Wichtel under the concept of a “Mini-Kita” with a capacity of 12 full-time places and a superversion from at least two childcare workers. It is open during the workweek between 8 am and 5 pm and focuses on. The vision of the Westwing Wichtel responsible body ‘Sira Kinderbetreuung GmbH’ is to achieve a work-life balance for parents and to promote equal opportunity and educational equity by expanding early childhood care. The innovative concept of company-supported childcare developed by Sira promotes the involvement of employers in the expansion of the childcare infrastructure. The benefits are shared by all parties involved - children, working parents, employers and society as a whole. It focuses on an early educational concept based on the experiences, the findings of research and important pedagogical concepts. A varied activity program with joint excursions to the Olympic Park or the surrounding playgrounds gives the children a safe and nurturing place to explore the world around them while also learning and gaining important skills.
Westwing Wichtel was founded with the goal of making a positive difference in today’s workplace and to support employees in their professional and family goals.
About Westwing Westwing is the leader in inspiration-based Home & Living eCommerce in Europe with EUR 522m of revenue in 2021. Through its ‘shoppable magazine’, Westwing inspires its loyal home enthusiast customers with a curated product selection and combines that with gorgeous content. With unparalleled loyalty, Westwing is generating more than 80% of sales from repeat customers. Westwing’s mission is: To inspire and make every home a beautiful home. The company was founded in 2011 and is headquartered in Munich. Westwing went public on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange in October 2018 and is active in eleven European countries.