The rankings and awards were decided according to the Family Experience Score (FES). Customer responses from a Germany-wide survey on eight concrete performance achievements were totted up with 731 companies from 73 areas of business being ranked as family-friendly on a scale of 0 to 100.
Bayer 04 received an FES of 76.3 putting them second in the ranking of German clubs – just behind Borussia Mönchengladbach and ahead of Borussia Dortmund and Bayern Munich. All 18 Bundesliga clubs were rated.
“The award is appreciation for the members of staff at Bayer 04,” declared Fernando Carro, the Bayer 04 CEO. “We have always paid close attention to being family-friendly. And that will remain so in the future.”
On the evaluation system:
The Family Experience Score (FES) was developed in association with the Institute for Psychology at the Goethe-University in Frankfurt am Main. To assess the family-friendliness of companies, a representative group of customers, living in households with one or more children, were presented with the following eight statements:
1. The range of products and services is designed for families and children.
2. The staff are friendly to families and children.
3. I feel in good hands there with my child.
4. Additional provision is made for families and children (e.g. range of games).
5. The environment is suitable for families and children.
6. Statements and promises made to families and children are adhered to.
7. Needs of families and children are met.
8. There is value for money for families and children.
The people surveyed rated each statement according to a five-stage scale. The FES was calculated as an average of all the statements with each statement being weighted the same. That produced the rankings with the overall result for the individual companies being represented in index points on a scale of 0 (zero approval) to 100 (complete approval).
With sixth place at the end of the 2025/26 Bundesliga campaign, Bayer 04 ended a season in the top third of the table for the ninth time in a row. While the Werkself were narrowly eliminated in the UEFA Champions League Round of 16 by eventual finalists Arsenal, the Black and Reds reached the semi-finals of the DFB Pokal for the third season in succession. As in previous years, you once again have the opportunity to vote for your Player of the Season. Voting is exclusively for Bayer 04 Club members and only via the Bayer 04 app up to and including 11 June.
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