Since 2011, the Alfred Wegener Institute has functioned according to the Collective Agreement for the Public Service of the Federation (TVöD Bund), which will usually also apply to your employment contract. Some exceptions apply, such as student assistants or interns – but if you come as a graduate student, postdoc or senior scientist to us or as an employee in management, technology or infrastructure, then your employment and, therefore, also your salary will normally be according to the TVöD Bund.

This means that the charging system of the federation from which your salary is derived will then apply to you. This is broken down into different occupational groups and determines the allocation to individual salary groups according to certain factors, which may vary from one profession to another – this often depends on the breadth and depth of certain skills which are necessary for the tasks to be performed, the difficulty of the activity, or the responsibility and/or importance that is involved.

What is important for you: Your salary is not open to negotiation; it instead results from your tasks (which determine the salary group) and your professional experience – within each salary group, there are six levels that reward increasing job experience with increasing pay.

For apprentices, the current remuneration in accordance with the Collective Agreement for Apprentices in the Public Sector (TVAöD) applies.

The normal working hours under the Collective Agreement for the Public Service of the Federation (TVöD Bund) is currently 39 hours per week for full-time employees.

The AWI provides flexible working hours to its public employees. What this means for you:

• While there is a core time, you can choose when you start and end your work, taking this variable into account.
• To a certain extent, you can balance your schedule with hours worked in advance or subsequently. This provides you with the possibility, in consultation with your supervisor, of working flexitime and, thus, reducing overtime.

The working hours on expeditions are not covered with the usual working time arrangements. For this purpose, there is a separate service agreement that covers both the working hours as well as the time off following expeditions.

If you are coming to us as a student assistant or intern, your working hours are not subject to the TVöD and are therefore subject to other rules. Please contact the Human Resources Department about any relevant questions.

We are happy to offer you more than just flexible working hours at AWI: If your tasks allow so, you may also work up to 50% of your working hours flexibly in terms of location, i.e. from outside the institute facilities. There are two options available that you may use after after consultation with your supervisor.

Teleworking

Teleworking offers you a reliable framework: You agree on fixed days when you work outside AWI, at a fixed location (usually your apartment or house). With this instrument, we particularly wish to strengthen the compatibility of work and family. Teleworking is therefore intended for employees with family responsibilities (children, relatives in need of care) and some other groups of staff.

Mobile working

Mobile working is basically open to all AWI employees, provided their tasks allow so. In contrast to teleworking, mobile working is flexible in terms of location and time: you may work from outside AWI for the hours agreed on with your supervisors (up to 50% of your regular working time). You choose the place of work yourself: This can be your home, the home of relatives, a café, your allotment garden... The important thing is that the location is in Germany and that data protection and work safety can be guaranteed. Fixed days of mobile working are not intended: You discuss your mobile working hours individually and at short notice with your supervisor.

With the option of working up to 50% remotely (teleworking or mobile working), we are offering something that many of our employees appreciate in terms of work-life balance - and which also recognises that there is no alternative to being at the AWI and having direct and personal interaction.

The annual holiday leave entitlement for public employees under the Collective Agreement for the Public Service of the Federation (TVöD Bund) is 30 calendar days for full-time employees.

The holiday provisions of the TVöD Bund has two special features that are attractive for staff members:

• Our employees can take unused holidays from a given year in principle even to the end of the following year. This should be the exception, but in principle, it offers more flexibility.
• On 24 and 31 December, our employees are usually free from work - so they do not need to take any leave or submit flextime for those days. And if you still urgently have to work on one of these days, such as in the technical divisions, then you will get an "extra" free day at another time.