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.
Poste Italiane considers the development and valorisation of people's distinctive skills, in any form and manifestation, at different levels of the organisation, as fundamental strategic levers to support the growth of the Group's business. The approach adopted by the Company is aimed at the broadest involvement of employees, recognising and enhancing their skills along the entire value chain, in such a way as to acquire a competitive advantage on the market and generate shared social value.
In continuity 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 signing 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 creating a work environment that reflects the values of inclusion and pluralism, offering equal opportunities to all people and enhancing individual skills. The encouragement and development of a corporate culture based on respect and valorisation of diversity also constitute the prerequisite for developing remuneration systems that enhance the skills of each individual, thus contributing to promoting optimal work performance and creating long-term 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 enhancing diversity and to creating a joint and effective action in communication, awareness and dissemination the following topics:
- 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.
Supporting maternity and paternity.
Consistent with previous years, the Lifeed initiative, originally launched in 2015 under the name "MAAM", "Maternity As A Master", continues. This initiative aims to support family reconciliation, with a particular focus on women's participation in the world of work. The programme, which is accessible in digital format, aims to make the parenting experience a "master" in transversal skills, which are also essential for professional growth and considered particularly useful when returning to work. The aim is to provide a greater awareness of the changes and skills acquired through the experience of caring for a child.
The programme is aimed not only at new mothers and fathers but also more generally at parents of children up to the age of 18. During 2023, the programme achieved the participation of about 1,200 users, who had the opportunity to enhance the skills acquired during their parenting experience. Employees who join the initiative can take advantage of online self-coaching courses that help them achieve a work-life balance, experienced not as a conflict but as an opportunity. These are webinars for inspiration, reflection, skills training and sharing on issues related to work-life synergy, well-being and the development of transversal skills.
The MultiMe®Finder programme, a tool introduced in 2022 and offered by Lifeed in cooperation with the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University in Chicago, was expanded in 2023. This programme has been made accessible not only to parents, but to all employees who wish to improve their awareness and develop their personal and professional growth skills. The goal is to allow users to explore and discover their skills and roles in different life experiences, both personal and professional. In this way, the programme aims to increase awareness of the roles played in different experiences, enhancing one's talents with greater flexibility in an inclusive perspective.
The Company has set itself the objective of contributing to the strengthening of measures and pathways aimed at promoting active parenthood, also as levers to combat the phenomenon of denatality and to encourage an increasingly balanced distribution of care burdens. This included 4 parenting support seminars for all employees, innovative and structured parental involvement programmes with a kick-off and 6 dedicated project knowledge webinars.
In addition, in 2023, Poste Italiane promoted the "Fiocco Giallo" (Yellow Ribbon) project, which, with the aim of offering concrete support to new parents and celebrating the arrival of a child, offers employees who become parents through birth, adoption or pre-adoptive fostering a box of quality products for baby care and hygiene.
Through the Support for Active Parenting Policy, already formalised since 2022, the Company has defined a clear framework for women before and after the maternity (or adoption) period. The Policy provides for support and development pathways aimed at the individual and organisational well-being of people and focuses on programmes to support the parental role and actions to support the status of women. The aim is to offer a concrete response to colleagues who need to reconcile family life through inclusive policies. With it, in fact, the Company outlines a people development and management strategy in line with the tools already in place and develops a modern parenting model aimed at supporting women, before and after the period of biological or adoptive motherhood. The Policy, in particular, envisaged the centrality of listening in order to correctly identify the person's needs and individual requirements, and the identification and development of a customised accompaniment programme based on the professional profile of the person and their maternity and personal care needs. Attention is also paid to the role of fathers and to the promotion of sharing care responsibilities for the strengthening of work-life conciliation mechanisms and of measures capable of promoting environments that are culturally ready to accommodate these needs. These initiatives are driven by increasingly innovative approaches and perspectives, which aim to improve the quality of life of employees and promote a sustainable and fair working environment.
With this in mind, the Policy provides for the definition of similar dedicated management paths for male personnel to:
- increase the number of male employees taking paternity leave;
- encourage the development of a culture oriented towards collaboration on care issues, because the inclusion and development of women's careers also passes through the rebalancing of care requirements with a view to the equal distribution of family responsibilities.
The Group, in fact, 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.
The "Mums At Work" project is part of the actions outlined by the Support for Active Parenting Policy, an initiative aimed at providing corporate coaching programmes to support women during the period of return from maternity leave, in order to facilitate achieving a balance between private and professional life. In particular, new mothers receive support for approximately four months from internal company coaches who assist employees in reformulating and refocusing their goals and in reconciling new family needs with the return to their work duties in the company. By 2023, the project had successfully involved more than 70 new mothers, highlighting the positive impact of the initiative in the business context.
Developing women’s leadership.
Poste Italiane's corporate identity has always been characterised by a strong female presence and a work environment that promotes freedom from any form of discrimination and prejudice in order to allow each individual to express themselves at their best, in line with the objectives shared in the Diversity and Inclusion Policy.
As part of its support for gender equality, Poste Italiane has promoted numerous initiatives, starting from its partnership with "Valore D", to obtaining Equal Salary and UNI/PdR 125:2022 certifications for gender equality. In addition, the participation of women in the field of STEM skills was emphasised, through the inclusion of young women with this course of study. These initiatives constitute a significant part 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 elated to sexual orientation and gender-based violence. Adherence to the Equal Salary certification process, obtained in 2022 and maintained in 2023, has allowed the Company to verify pay equity between women and men within its organisation, enriching innovation processes, improving reputation and image of the Company and offering maximum transparency regarding 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, provides 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 recognitions obtained by Poste Italiane, including the Group's rating for gender equality policies and actions according to the Bloomberg Gender-Equality Index and by Equileap.
The numerous recognitions obtained by Poste Italiane for its policies of attention to gender diversity testify 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. To this end, Poste Italiane has collaborated with Consel-Consorzio Elis in the two-year "School4Life 2.0" project, which aims to foster a structured connection between schools and businesses, prevent school drop-outs and offer young people a more direct view of the world of work and greater awareness of their own potential.
Poste Italiane has also implemented programmes aimed at strengthening the alliance between the corporate and educational worlds, through orientation and intergenerational dialogue initiatives. 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 trade masters are the roles that the company experts identified play to inspire young people and guide them in their study and work choices, promote the expression of their critical thinking, transfer trade-related skills and bring them closer to the complex and constantly evolving world of work.
The enhancement of Mentoring has also contributed to the construction of the Leadership Community of Practice as an inspirational space for the dissemination of evolved managerial values and models. Also continued with Valore D was the implementation of orientation programmes through dialogue with role models of different ages aimed at encouraging school-age girls and boys to follow their aspirations, free from conditioning.
As part of the company's initiatives aimed at fostering intergenerational alliance and exchange on the basis of the results of the "Generations Connected" survey, support initiatives continued and new actions were launched.
In particular, the MIPA project "The Value of Experience", job training among colleagues, seniors and juniors, to compare techniques, approaches and acting skills, continued. The programme will continue in 2024 in Digital, Technology & Operations.
Enhancement of disabled personnel
In line with the objective of enhancing diversity and promoting social inclusion, Poste Italiane continues with the LIS Project in some Post Offices throughout the country. This project aims to establish a dedicated desk that provides services in sign language to customers with hearing disabilities. The customer is assisted by staff able to communicate in Italian sign language for normal counter activities, such as paying bills and sending mail and parcels. Poste Italiane has developed numerous accessible multimedia contents on its site, created to meet the different needs of users in terms of accessibility and communication methods. In fact, among the tools there are contents with predominantly visual characteristics such as infographics and video highlights, as well as recreational-educational narrative elements as in the case of interactive games. These initiatives are an integral part of Poste Italiane's vast programme aimed at offering services and tools accessible to all users.
With the entry into force of the new regulations as of November 2022, which make it mandatory for large Italian private companies to comply with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1, Poste Italiane has made a commitment to fully comply with these standards and to adopt a specific approach aimed at making digital accessibility sustainable in the long term. Therefore, complying with the specific regulations on digital accessibility, Poste Italiane is committed to the design and development of technological solutions capable of ensuring that digital services are accessible and usable by all, eliminating barriers and facilitating equal access to information and online resources. Poste Italiane's commitment to digital accessibility, therefore, fits perfectly with its Diversity and Inclusion strategy, which promotes an inclusive work environment and company culture that respects diversity of perspectives and abilities. Thus, through the implementation of WCAG 2.1 and the emphasis on diversity and inclusion, Poste Italiane demonstrates its tangible commitment to creating an accessible digital environment that contributes to a fairer and more inclusive society for all.
Supporting vulnerability.
In 2023, Poste Italiane continued to demonstrate its commitment to the "Noi Siamo Qui" (We Are Here) caring initiative, which aims to support people with chronic and/or serious illnesses or who find themselves in situations of vulnerability and fragility with dedicated listening actions, work flexibility interventions, and the activation of business coaching paths to accompany their return to work and support their well-being. Among the active services for the project target, in collaboration with the company Centro Medico, is also the possibility of requesting a second opinion for oncological and cardiovascular pathologies. The central objective of the initiative is to offer, among the various measures, a listening process aimed at identifying the main implications of a cultural, organisational and managerial nature linked to conditions of fragility and at the same time spreading growing sensitivity and establishing a corporate closeness relationship on the topic.
In addition, in order to ensure the re-employment of those people within the Company who, as a result of organisational initiatives and/or production-digital developments, are not allocated to fully productive/value-added areas, Poste Italiane continued the Insourcing and Re-employment programme, which was launched in 2021. Moreover, the project was also dedicated to the re-employment of "workers in a condition of fragility" within the meaning of current legal provisions who, unable to work on company premises in relation to health emergencies, found different employment to protect health and safety in the workplace.
As part of its caring initiatives in support of vulnerability, the company has embarked on an integrated plan to support caregivers by introducing the "Lifeed Care" programme with the aim of offering a new vision and meaning to the caring experience. This course aims to enhance the skills acquired during the caring experience by presenting a digital approach dedicated to caregivers that redefines the value perspective of the dimension between care and career. Through specific online self-discovery sessions, participants have the opportunity to improve their well-being and stress management. In addition, a practical support kit was developed with the aim of fostering positive synergies for the reconciliation of professional and personal life. This kit was presented during a dedicated webinar aimed at promoting greater awareness of the role of caregivers, providing tools and ways to support them. The implementation of "Lifeed Care" reflects the Company's commitment to provide concrete resources and support to those dedicated to the important role of caregiver.
"Al tuo fianco" (At your side) Project
Poste Italiane promotes active support for employees' psychological well-being.
With the aim of promoting the psychological well-being of its employees, the "At your side" project was launched in 2023 in an experimental phase t is a listening, guidance and support desk whose services include access to a dedicated platform aimed at supporting people's mental well-being. This project aims to provide concrete answers to challenges, changes and vulnerable situations that may arise in the daily lives of employees. The platform allows access to a network of accurately selected psychologists and psychotherapists to undertake an accompanying pathway, and makes available various accessible content, such as various scientific tests for the self-assessment of global wellbeing. Initially, the Company bears the costs of the first two sessions, thus demonstrating a tangible commitment to provide initial financial support to facilitate access to psychological support services his initiative highlights the Company's awareness of the mental health needs of employees and its willingness to offer meaningful resources for their psychological well-being.
"Poste, Plurale, Universale"
People at the centre of the inclusion process.
In November, Poste Italiane organised the second Diversity Day event "Poste Plurale, Universale". The aim of the event was to share a moment of transversal attention on the inclusive path undertaken by the Company, in line with the objectives of the Group's strategic plan and the pillars of the sustainability strategy. During the event, external guests and employees shared testimonies related to the four dimensions of Diversity & nclusion: Gender, Generations, Vulnerability and Interculturality, offering an immersive experience in diversity participation in the event was ensured for the entire company population through the use of streaming and accessible with the presence of LIS interpreters. In addition, a feedback questionnaire was administered anonymously to participating employees in order to gather ideas and reflections for improvement. Employees shared their experiences with authenticity, generosity and courage to help other participants learn about the actions implemented by Poste Italiane. Numerous positive feedbacks were received, highlighting the appreciation for the initiative and the value of the inclusion pathway.
In order to promote and guarantee smooth and effective communication with staff with hearing disabilities in terms of accessibility in work contexts, Poste Italiane continues to ensure the subtitling of all videos on the corporate intranet and the development of accessible aids to improve the use of training initiatives and intranet contributions.
Tutorial Poste Italiane: an inclusive project for digital accessibility and the coexistence of differences
Poste italiane's tutorial platform, one of the winning projects of the Insieme 24 initiative, has been realised its aim is to support customers with sensory disabilities or who are not yet properly digitalised in independently accessing the services of Poste's digital channels. In this regard, the "PosteXtutti" competence centre was set up thanks to the project, with the aim of involving people in the Company who experience disability first-hand in order to arrive together at a shared communication using a language capable of restoring and representing a "coexistence of differences" in this regard, in order to make Poste Italiane's products and services more accessible, some editions of the TG Poste have been made available in LIS.
Also during 2023, Poste Italiane continued to support, for the eleventh edition, the initiative dedicated to employees' children and siblings with disabilities, which includes two summer holiday periods, each lasting fifteen days. Thanks to this initiative, about 40 boys and girls had the opportunity to enjoy leisure time and receive individual assistance from dedicated operators and were able to express their individual abilities by stimulating self-confidence, self-esteem and the ability to join and belong to the Group. The programme has thus fostered an experience of socialisation and full integration, as well as allowing families to benefit from relief in their daily care needs For the fourth consecutive year, Poste Italiane participated in "4Weeks4 Inclusion", the largest inter-company event dedicated to diversity and inclusion in Italy Over the course of four weeks, the event involved over 300 partners including businesses, universities, associations and non-profit organisations who shared events, in person and digitally, creating moments open to the public and generating thousands of interactions on social channels. Through the initiative, the company actively participated by bringing its own testimony to the inter-company day on the gender gap and realised its own seminar, accessible online, entitled "Art and the Other Inclusion through diversity", with the aim of promoting a reflection on the power of art and the artist in overcoming the limits of ordinary conventions and moving towards the enhancement of one's uniqueness. This event is part of the company's commitment to foster an inclusive and diverse environment, emphasising the fundamental role of art as a tool for expression and overcoming barriers. The Company, already a signatory of the Charter for Equal Opportunities, joined the "European Diversity Month", promoted by the European Commission to raise awareness among organisations and companies on the importance of diversity and inclusion in work contexts, launching a campaign entitled "A bridge between generations" in which several events took place in May and June to strengthen the knowledge of the characteristics of different generations and stimulate the active participation of people in order to improve intergenerational dialogue. Poste Italiane has organised several initiatives in this context, including: the release for the entire company population of the e-learning course "The Generations in the Company", consisting of 8 video briefs dealing with the characteristics of each generation in the workplace; the publication of a podcast on the subject; the realisation of a webinar as part of the Diversity Innovation Meeting cycle that highlighted the trends characterising the different Generations; and the activation of a special edition of the "Smart Café" initiative. As part of the promotion of diversity and inclusion, Poste Italiane has further intensified cultural awareness and training activities also through six "Diversity Innovation Meetings", with the aim of exploring the main key aspects of diversity, focusing in particular on issues such as gender equality, intergenerational alliance, vulnerabilities, interculturality and inclusive language. During these meetings, representatives of start-ups, third sector organisations and institutions were invited to share their experiences and knowledge on promoting inclusion. The participants, divided into working groups, took part in interactive discussions and worked together to generate ideas to be implemented in the specific reality of Poste Italiane
Poste Italiane's support to food collection
Together in the 27th edition. Among the solidarity initiatives that involved Poste Italiane during 2023, there is the twenty-seventh edition of the National Food Collection Day, the initiative organised by Banco Alimentare Onlus that allows to donate part of spending to those in difficult situations of need. The Group contributed with over 180 company vehicles for the transport of donated food and employees actively participated in the day of solidarity, offering their contribution both as drivers and as volunteers in the supermarkets in just one day 7,350 tonnes of food were collected in 11,800 outlets, a sign of trust that testifies to the value of the solidarity initiative as concrete help for the more vulnerable sections of the population.