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Work Life Balance
In today’s world, our work and private lives are overlapping more than ever and have an increasing impact on each other. This development poses a challenge to all employees in their endeavors to create a balance between the diverse activities of work, family and leisure. By "Work-Life-Balance", we at Gore are referring to all aspects of our company culture that support our employees in their efforts to establish a well balanced relationship between their personal needs and the commitments of their work environment.
Our "Work-Life-Balance" program is an initiative by associates for associates. The broad range of opportunities on offer in Germany are being taken up more and more at our locations and demonstrate the success of a company culture that is lived out by our associates to the full.
Keep Your Life in Balance
Our models of working-time management operate on the basis of autonomous choice – without reference to control systems – and have come to form one of the cornerstones of our company culture. So anyone who prefers to work to clearly defined rules in a highly structured hierarchical system will not feel at home working for us.
At Gore, we expect associates to perform their tasks largely independently. We leave them to determine for themselves their areas of competence within their teams and chain of work processes, and to take responsibility for these commitments. Flexibility and entrepreneurial spirit are called for – with their actions firmly directed to the needs of both their external and internal customers.
Body & Soul
In keeping with the adage „prevention is better than cure“, our associates have launched a range of activities that are designed to promote their physical and spiritual well-being. These include a series of „heal yourself“ programs – some geared to a set of physical exercises in the work breaks, others to relaxation sessions or towards exercises that train the back muscles. There are also opportunities to take part in yoga, qi-gong, dancing lessons - and more recently a drama group.
It goes without saying that a company like Gore, which is known throughout the world for its GORE-TEX® products for outdoor enthusiasts and people with an active lifestyle, also provides recreational activities of a sporting nature. Anyone wishing to try out an activity along such lines can choose between badminton, body tuning, keep-fit, football, inline skating, jogging, climbing, mountain-biking, pilates, tennis, taekwon-do and yoga.
Most of our plants have facilities for showers and changing rooms. Some even have designated sports rooms that can be used for a variety of activities.
There is one thing that all the activities of the associates at Gore have in common – whether they are sports oriented, exercises to relax mind and body or participation in a drama group: they raise the feeling of physical and spiritual well-being and promote a sense of team spirit amongst the associates.
And there’s something for the kids, too
Today more than ever, parents have to cope with the challenge of balancing out the demands of family and work. This is why we have launched a variety of initiatives that make it easier for associates to combine their private lives and work commitments.
This includes child-care for small children between the ages of 0 to 3 and is undertaken in cooperation with community services in Putzbrunn and Feldkirchen-Westerham. - And for older children we provide opportunities for them to join adventure camps during the vacation period.
Volunteer activities
Social commitment is an important element of our Work-Life-Balance program – one which embraces the idea that „the commitment of the firm should follow the commitment of the associates“. Gore takes the social responsibility demonstrated by its associates very seriously and promotes their local community initiatives in the form of donations to the institutions and charitable bodies which they choose to support.
Many of our associates give up part of their free time to act as volunteers and play an active role in youth work, sports clubs, help for disabled children and other people with special needs or by assisting the emergency services such as the fire brigade.
An important feature of all the activities supported by Gore is the principle that the initiative should always come from the associates themselves: Somebody comes up with an idea, finds people around them who think alike, and together they ensure the idea is put into practice. In the final analysis, this is nothing other than what the company culture of Gore understands by the principles of „freedom“ and „commitment“.