Human Resources management is a priority for the Company, which is committed to ensuring respect for equal opportunities by recognising the value of each individual, and to reducing situations of individual fragility. In fact, as regulated in the Code of Ethics, the Group promotes the management and fair growth of intellectual potential, in line with the criteria of merit and the results achieved, guaranteeing equal treatment and condemning any form of discrimination. In accordance with this principle, the selection of the corporate population is based on individual skills and professionalism, in line with the Group's needs. The selection process is carried out irrespective of age, gender, sexual orientation, disability, ethnicity, nationality, political opinions and religious beliefs, which are not evaluation criteria, in accordance with the principle of impartiality expressed by the Group.
The development and enhancement of people's distinctive skills, in all their forms and manifestations, at all levels of the organisation, are key factors in supporting the growth of the Group's business. Poste Italiane adopts an approach aimed at the widest involvement of employees, enhancing their skills throughout the value chain, in order to gain a competitive advantage in the market and to generate shared social value.
In line with previous years, Poste Italiane supports the "Charter for Equal Opportunities and Equality at Work", a declaration of intent voluntarily signed by companies of various sizes with the aim of promoting a corporate culture and human resources policies that are inclusive and free of discrimination and prejudice. By supporting this statement, the Group reinforces its commitment to valuing the individuality and diversity of the people in the company. In fact, the Charter promotes principles aimed at fostering the creation of a working environment that reflects the values of inclusion and pluralism, offering equal opportunities to all people and valuing individual skills. Encouraging and developing a corporate culture based on respect for and appreciation of diversity is also a prerequisite to develop remuneration systems functional to enhancing the skills of each individual, which can guarantee optimal work performance and thus contribute to the creation of lasting shared value.
Poste Italiane continues to implement what has been set out in the Memorandum of Understanding with the Ministry of Equal Opportunities, in line with its commitment to enhance diversity and to create a joint and effective action in communicating, raising awareness and disseminating the following issues:
- promote initiatives aimed at the protection and full affirmation of human rights, as well as preventing and combating all forms of exploitation of human beings and people trafficking;
- promote full implementation of policies regarding equal opportunities between men and women, with particular reference to work-life-balance and career issues;
- prevent and combat sexual and gender-based violence, stalking and any other form of violence against and abuse of women and children;
- prevent and eliminate all forms of discrimination directly or indirectly based on ethnic origin, religion, personal beliefs, age, sexual orientation or gender identity.
The Group has implemented a number of initiatives. The main ones are summarised below:
Supporting maternity and paternity.
In line with previous years, the Lifeed initiative, launched in 2015 under the name "MAAM", "Maternity As A Master", which supports family reconciliation, with a special focus on women's participation in the world of work, continued in 2022. The programme, which can be used digitally, is aimed at enhancing parenting skills, which are also particularly useful when returning to work, in order to become more aware of the changes and skills acquired through the experience of caring for a child. Registration is open to both women on maternity leave and new parents of children from 0 to 3 years of age, as well as managers involved with their employees, and from this year also parents of children up to the age of 18. During 2022, the programme involved the participation of about 900 users, who had the opportunity to enhance the skills acquired during their parenting experience. The initiative is also supported by an online community that allows mothers and fathers to discuss parenting and the path they have taken, integrating their different experiences within a network of participants from various companies, sharing their learning, training and skills development process in a protected and stimulating environment.
In addition, a pilot edition of the MultiMe®Finder programme, a new tool offered by Lifeed in cooperation with the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University in Chicago, will be launched in 2022. This programme allows to explore and discover own skills and roles in different life experiences, both personal and professional. The initiative involved over 350 employees and extended not only to parents, but also to all people interested in improving their awareness and developing their skills for personal and professional growth. In fact, the programme aims to increase awareness of the roles played in different life experiences, enhancing the skills acquired as opportunities for personal growth, also in the work context.
The Group recognises the importance of parenting for men as well, being aware that it represents a significant opportunity to improve skills such as empathy, listening, understanding of others, patience and communication, and offers free and systematic parenting support seminars for all staff on paediatric prevention and parental support in the developmental and relational journey with children.
In addition, an Active Parenting Support Policy was approved in 2022, with the aim of creating a customised support programme based on the professional profile and personal needs of employees, as well as encapsulating the company's programmes and regulations to support staff with children.
Through the Active Parenthood Support Policy, in line with ESG objectives, Poste Italiane strengthens its commitment to enhancing gender balance and overcoming stereotypes, discrimination and prejudice in the workplace, in order to promote conditions, measures and paths aimed at the individual and organisational well-being of people, focusing on paths to support the role of parents and actions to support the condition of women.
This programme consists of pre- and post-work development paths, the use of platforms to improve the soft skills acquired through parenthood, and the possibility of participating in refresher and coaching programmes to facilitate, if necessary, a return to work. In this way, the Group has introduced management and care processes that offer a concrete response to employees, enhancing inclusive policies and representing an investment in the future of the company and families. Attention is also paid to the role of fathers and the sharing of care burdens in order to strengthen work-life balance mechanisms and measures to promote culturally ready contexts to accommodate these needs.
These initiatives are driven by increasingly innovative ways and perspectives, which aim to improve the quality of life of employees and promote a sustainable and fair working environment.
Within the actions envisaged by the Active Parenting Support Policy is also the launch of the "Mums At Work" project, which aims to offer company coaching programmes to support women returning from maternity leave, in order to facilitate the achievement of a work-life balance. In particular, new mothers are supported for about four months by in-house coaches who help employees refocus their goals and reconcile their new family needs with their return to their jobs at the Company. The Company, in addition to guaranteeing the use of breastfeeding time off in accordance with the regulations in force, recognises the possibility for working mothers to be assigned during the first year of their child's age to their municipality of habitual residence or to a neighbouring municipality, provided that it is within their own Macro Territorial Area, without prejudice to their duties. In addition, with regard to tasks that can be remote, from 2022, the possibility of increasing the number of days on which work can be performed in smart working has been introduced for parents of children under three years of age.
Developing women’s leadership.
Poste Italiane's corporate identity has always been characterised by a strong female presence and a working environment free from all forms of discrimination and prejudice so that everyone can express themselves to the full, in accordance with the objectives shared in the Diversity and Inclusion Policy.
In the area of support for gender equality, numerous initiatives were promoted, starting with the partnership with "Valore D", and ending with the Equal Salary certification and the valorisation of STEM skills through the inclusion of young women with this course of study. These initiatives represent an important chapter of the Diversity & Inclusion Plan, which also includes strengthening management systems for career progression in middle management positions, enhancing work life adjustment mechanisms in terms of sharing family responsibilities, and removing potential obstacles to gender equality, including those related to sexual orientation and gender-based violence. Adhering to the Equal Salary certification pathway has enabled the Company to verify pay equity between women and men within its organisation, enriching innovation processes, improving the Company's reputation and image, and offering maximum transparency with respect to Poste Italiane's ongoing commitment to gender equality issues.
The conscious management of diversity in an inclusive key, in addition to creating shared social value, determines a competitive advantage for the entire Poste Italiane Group and is functional to promoting people's engagement with respect to corporate goals. This is confirmed by the numerous awards obtained by Poste Italiane, including global leadership in gender equality according to Bloomberg's Gender-Equality Index and entry into the Top 100 global rankings on gender equality compiled by Equileap. The recognitions obtained by Poste Italiane for its policies of attention to gender diversity demonstrate the rooting of these values in the corporate culture and the sharing of the path at every level of responsibility, further enhancing the Group's reputation in the markets and among the financial community.
Alliance among generations..
The Company supports school and career guidance projects, recognising the responsibility of socially responsible companies to promote the growth of the younger generation and to collaborate with the school system and families. For this reason, Poste Italiane collaborated with Consel-Consorzio Elis to participate in the two-year "School4Life 2.0" project, aimed at fostering a structured connection between schools and businesses and preventing school drop-outs.
Poste Italiane has also implemented programmes to strengthen the alliance between the corporate world and the world of education, with initiatives for orientation and dialogue between generations. These programmes provided opportunities for collaboration between seniors and students to overcome vertical barriers and foster the exchange of experiences to support inclusion and employability.
Role models, mentors and in the future also trade masters are the roles that the company experts identified play to inspire young people and guide them in their study and work choices, encourage the expression of their critical thinking, transfer trade-related skills and bring them closer to the complex and ever-changing world of work. In fact, Poste Italiane continued its collaboration with "Valore D" for the realisation of orientation programmes aimed at encouraging girls and boys of school age to follow their aspirations, free from gender conditioning, through dialogue with internal role models, in order to actively affect common stereotypes that accompany the younger generations.
Enhancement of disabled personnel
Consistent with the objective of enhancing diversity and social inclusion, the LIS Project continues at Poste Italiane in a number of post offices nationwide. This project aims to set up a desk offering services in sign language to customers with hearing disabilities. The customer is assisted by staff able to express themselves in Italian sign language for normal counter activities, such as paying bills and sending mail and parcels. Currently, the initiative involves 10 Post Offices with a total of 11 resources in the six Macro Territorial Areas. In September 2022, on the occasion of the International Day of Sign Language, Poste Italiane broadcast the webinar "Digital Citizens", which illustrated the essential elements to pay attention to when surfing the web and also provided food for thought to increase digital awareness. The webinar is in addition to the multimedia content available on the Poste Italiane website, created to meet the different needs of users in terms of accessibility and communication methods. In fact, tools with predominantly visual characteristics such as infographics and video briefs, playful-educational narrative elements such as interactive games were created. These initiatives are part of Poste Italiane's broad programme to offer services and tools accessible to all users.
Supporting vulnerability.
In 2022, Poste Italiane continued its commitment to the "Noi Siamo Qui" (We Are Here) caring initiative, aimed at supporting workers with fragility due to serious illnesses or chronic diseases with dedicated listening actions, work flexibility interventions, and the activation of business coaching paths with an inclusive approach to accompany an effective reintegration into work. The aim is to offer, among other measures, a listening pathway to identify the main cultural, organisational and management implications of fragility conditions and, at the same time, to spread growing awareness and company proximity on the issue. Among the new services launched for the project target group, the possibility of requesting a second opinion for oncological and cardiovascular diseases was also introduced in cooperation with the company's Medical Centre.
In addition, in order to ensure the re-employment of "workers in fragility condition" who were unable to work at the company's premises in connection with the health emergency, Poste Italiane continued the Insourcing and Re-employment programme, which started in 2021.
In order to promote the psychological well-being of its employees, a new project has been set up in 2022, which will start in early 2023, a "Listening, Guidance and Support Counter", whose services include access to a dedicated platform to support people's mental well-being and offer a concrete response to challenges, changes and vulnerable situations that may arise in daily life. The platform will provide access to a network of selected psychologists and psychotherapists to undertake an accompanying pathway, and will make available various accessible content, such as various scientific tests for the self-assessment of global well-being.
