[2024 Women's Forum] "Dissatisfaction with Parental Leave, Manager Responsibility... Need to Set Work Priorities Well"

Vintgetter Deutsche Telekom Vice President - Professor Jeong Jaehoon Seoul Women's University Dialogue
"Leaving the Office for an Hour Doesn't Mean Closing the Company"

Sandra Bintgetter, Vice President of Deutsche Telekom, is having a dialogue with Professor Jeong Jae-hoon of Seoul Women's University after delivering a keynote speech titled "Why Does Germany's Largest Telecom Company Employ Parental Leave Takers as Part-Time Workers?" at the 2024 Women Leaders Forum hosted by Asia Economy on the 30th at Lotte Hotel, Sogong-dong, Seoul. Photo by Kim Hyun-min

"It is important for managers to appropriately set the priorities of work."

Sandra Vintgetter, Vice President of Deutsche Telekom, gave this advice during a conversation with Professor Jeong Jae-hoon of the Department of Social Welfare at Seoul Women's University immediately after her keynote speech at the '2024 Asia Economy Women Leaders Forum' held on the 30th at Lotte Hotel in Sogong-dong, Seoul. The intention is that this allows for smoothly filling the work gap caused by parental leave and creating conditions to realize work-family balance.

Vice President Vintgetter emphasized, "It is the manager's responsibility to ensure that employees do not feel overburdened with work," adding, "For example, if the company has an 8-hour workday, employees should not feel that they have to do more work than can be done within those 8 hours." According to Vintgetter, Deutsche Telekom does not try to maintain 100% of the workload when one person is absent.

Professor Jeong Jae-hoon of the Department of Social Welfare at Seoul Women's University is having a conversation with Sandra Bintgetter, Vice President of Deutsche Telekom, who delivered the keynote speech at the 2024 Women Leaders Forum hosted by Asia Economy at Lotte Hotel in Sogong-dong, Seoul, on the 30th. Photo by Kim Hyun-min

Professor Jeong described this as ‘work restructuring’ and added, "It is important for managers such as team leaders to continuously communicate to prevent work from being concentrated on specific employees."

Regarding the issue that parental leave can hinder career management, Vice President Vintgetter introduced Deutsche Telekom’s program called ‘stay in contact.’ This program encourages communication with colleagues about work even during the leave period. When meetings related to the tasks handled by the employee on leave are held, the employee can participate via video and continuously receive updates on the meeting content and work progress.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.