• The employee informs their boss of their intention to take leave.
• Schedule a planning meeting between the employee and their boss (this meeting should take place no later than four months before the period of leave is due to begin).
• For special leave and caregiver leave, it is often impossible to plan in advance. In such cases, the planning meeting should take place as soon as possible to ensure a successful return to work.
• Use the quick guide provided for the planning meeting (available from BfC).

Stay in contact (especially if the period of leave is longer than 6 months); there are a number of different ways of doing so:

• Regular meetings between the employee and their boss
• Option of working part-time
• Join a mailing list
• Request Forschungszentrum Jülich’s newsletter and the in-house magazine
• Check if you still need access to the FZJ network, e.g. to use the Intranet. There are various ways to access the network, even if you are not on campus.
• Invitations to institute and works meetings

Maintaining qualifications:

• Provision of journals through the Central Library (ZB)
• Information on training courses from the internal training programme and the option of attending
• Sign up for the training newsletter.
• Invitation to conferences and talks

• Schedule a meeting between the employee and their boss to talk about returning to work (beginning of the last third of leave).
• Use the quick guide provided for this meeting (available from BfC).

• Introduction to tasks
• Meetings between the employee and their boss after one week and again after four weeks. Possible topics are: How is the return to work progressing? Is there any need for action, particularly concerning work-life balance?
• All other topics can be addressed in the annual personnel talk.