Diversity

Living diversity

Diversity management is a concept that is extremely important within an international working environment. The aim of the concept is to recognise each individual’s special knowledge and skills and utilise them for the benefit of the entire company.

Diversity champions an open working environment, in which employees are treated with respect and everyone is free to develop and reach their full potential. Swisscom sees diversity as something it must commit to internally within the company, as well as externally with its customers and partners. Swisscom’s commitment to diversity means ensuring the well-being of all its employees, so they are motivated to deliver outstanding performance.

Swisscom considers a balanced gender ratio to be fundamentally important for the brand and for ensuring the success of the company. One way Swisscom facilitates this is through flexible working models that help create an environment in which every employee is able to tap into their full potential. Consistent with its commitment to diversity, Swisscom has set itself the goal of increasing the percentage of women in management to 20% in the medium term.

Swisscom is also increasingly championing the use of solutions such as flexible working methods and models that support the compatibility of family and career, thereby enabling a healthy work-life balance and addressing employees’ growing need for flexibility and the right to make their own decisions. As a family-friendly employer Swisscom pays child and education allowances that are higher than those laid down by federal law and that are also in most cases higher than those laid down by cantonal law. Swisscom also supports external childcare facilities through financial contributions and by providing access to free counselling services through the familienservice® family service as well as holiday childcare during the school holidays.

In the interest of diversity, Swisscom finds it extremely important to have a wide range of cultures represented within the company. The wide range of approaches, ideas and skills possessed by our employees makes Swisscom an innovative and creative company. 82.8% of Swisscom’s workforce are Swiss nationals. The remaining 17.2% are made up of employees from 90 different countries, including 5.3% from Germany, 3.8% from Italy, 2% from France and 1% from Spain.

The average age of the population and hence the average age of Swisscom’s workforce is steadily increasing, which poses opportunities as well as risks. Swisscom is addressing this issue with its “Generation Management” initiative.

Swisscom considers sexual orientation to be an important aspect of diversity. The company’s corporate culture is characterised by openness and tolerance.

With respect to the opportunities offered and the potential accorded to the individual, Swisscom does not differentiate between employees with physical or mental impairments and those who are not impaired. Swisscom builds on the individual strengths and skills that each employee possesses. No cases of discrimination were reported in 2013.

Generation management

Swisscom is using “generation management” to address demographic trends in good time and find innovative ways of allowing older employees to continue in active employment. The average age of employees, the wider population and Swisscom’s customers is steadily increasing. Swisscom is responding to this by establishing “BestAge projects”. These projects focus on meeting the needs of older employees and older customers. The measures and programmes implemented in call centres and shops accommodate these needs. Older employees are serving and advising older customers. Further initiatives include in-house consulting, where older senior managers advise line management, provide coaching and allow others to benefit from their experience through involvement in projects. Older employees also serve as quality assurance specialists in network construction projects.

Swisscom has been a member of the Swiss Demographics Forum since 2011. Currently comprising seven finance and service companies, the Swiss Demographics Forum is a platform which aims to collect information and draw up basic principles for establishing a sustainable demographic management system. In 2013, the members of the forum developed a variety of practical solutions that could be therefore put to good use by the participating companies.

Diversity @ Swisscom

Equal pay

Swisscom takes great care to ensure equal pay for men and women. The company’s salary system is structured in such a way as to award equal pay for equivalent duties, responsibilities and performance. To this end, the individual functions are assigned to function levels according to their requirements and a salary band is defined for each function level. This stipulates the remuneration range for equivalent duties and responsibility. Pay is determined within this range based on the individual employee’s performance. As part of its salary review, Swisscom grants employees who have performed better and are lower within the respective salary band an above-average pay rise. In this way, any wage disparities are evened out on an ongoing basis. When conducting the salary review, Swisscom also checks whether there are any pay inequalities between men and women within individual organisational units and corrects them in a targeted manner.

Swisscom also uses the federal government’s equal pay tool (Logib) to conduct periodic reviews of its salary structures to ascertain whether disparities exist between men’s and women’s pay. Previous reviews have revealed only minor pay discrepancies, well under the tolerance threshold of 5%.

In 2011, Swisscom joined the Equal Pay Dialogue, an initiative set up by the employer and employee umbrella organisations in association with the federal government to review the status of equal pay. The positive outcome of the Equal Pay Dialogue confirms that Swisscom salaries conform to the principle of equal pay.

Human rights

Swisscom considers the protection of human rights an integral part of its corporate culture. There is no or only very little risk of human rights being breached within the Swisscom Group. Swisscom employs 17,362 FTEs in Switzerland and 2,375 FTEs in Italy, with no human rights risks having been identified at these locations. A further 371 FTEs work outside of Switzerland and Italy – predominantly in the EU or OECD countries – and here, too, there is no risk or only very little risk of human rights breaches. Swisscom only employs a small number of staff in the “risk countries” listed by the rating agencies (Russia, Romania, Malaysia and South Africa). Swisscom employees working outside of Switzerland and Italy only render services, i.e. they are not employed in production. Swisscom therefore considers there to be no need for an internal Group management system for risks concerning human rights infringements.

Swisscom is aware that there are risks of human rights being breached by its suppliers and has therefore set up a supplier risk management system.

Swisscom also applies a purchasing policy based on the SA 8000 standard, which places clear demands on its suppliers as regards the protection of human rights.