Interview Laurence Hulin (La Poste): “We have created expert roles to support disabled employees” Diversity France's postal service operator La Poste, which has 238,000 employees, has pursued an active policy that has made it one of the leading employers of disabled employees in the country, starting with its first agreement on disability signed back in 1995. Laurence Hulin, La Poste's director of diversity and equal opportunities, looks back at the commitment and actions that have enabled the company to achieve an employment rate for people with disabilities of almost 9%.
Italy: banking sector employees approve trade unions’ platform of demands as sector collective agreement still awaits renewal National industrial relations With the procedures for renewing the banking sector’s collective bargaining agreement running behind schedule, the sector’s social partners agreed to extend the previous agreement from its expiry date of 31 December 2022 until 31 July 2023. The workers' assemblies have almost unanimously (99.5%) approved the trade unions’ ‘platform of demands’ so negotiations for renewing the sector’s national collective bargaining agreement (NCA) should open imminently. The NCA covers some 280,000 employees.
Great Britain: electric goods retailer Currys is providing paid gender reassignment leave Diversity On 26 June, UK white goods retailer Currys (32,000 staff worldwide and at least 10,000 in the UK) announced it was offering its UK employees undergoing gender reassignment, access to an additional six-week paid leave scheme. This announcement comes at a time when the retail sector in the UK is still having to cope with unprecedented staff shortages.
France: Apicil proposes a tool to improve inclusivity in companies Diversity In partnership with Mix’r, (a network of responsible companies) and Humando (employment agencies), Apicil, the Lyon-based mutual social protection group (2,000+ employees) has put a questionnaire together that aims to measure employees' perceptions of inclusion and diversity, the goal of which is to make progress in this area. Deployed across its own employees in particular, this tool was able to identify several subjects that respondents perceived as potential factors for discrimination (including physical appearance), and the results will now drive the implementation of specific measures starting in 2023.
Free Canada: National Bank is recruiting neurodivergent professionals to its data science teams Diversity Convinced that neurodiversity allows companies “to access unique skills and ways of thinking,” the National Bank of Canada has implemented a tailored recruitment process in collaboration with EY Canada (consulting and financial services) to attract neurodivergent professionals to its data engineering analyst and data scientist teams.…
Great Britain: Virgin Media 02 will fund gender transition treatment for its employees Diversity On 13 April the recently merged UK telecommunications giant unveiled new commitments to improve inclusion and gender equality within the group over the next five years. The group’s ‘All In’ diversity, equity, and inclusion (DE&I) strategy is the first since the merger between Virgin media and O2 in 2021 and includes company funding for gender transition treatment for its transgender and non-binary employees.
Free Great Britain: government launches a pilot scheme on salary transparency National legislation On 08 March, International Women’s Day, the UK government unveiled a new pilot scheme that participating companies will be testing. The employers participating in this test,…
Chile: Government launches National Workplace Equity Plan National legislation Promoting the return of women to work and achieving gender equality are the objectives of Chile’s 2021-2030 National Plan for Workplace Equity, unveiled on 03 March by Women's and Equality Minister Mónica Zalaquett, accompanied by the Ministers of the Economy and Labour. While the Covid-19 health crisis has led hundreds of thousands of Chilean women to be laid off or forced to leave their jobs, the goal of the national ‘roadmap’ is to reach, by 2030, the OECD average workplace female participation rate, i.e., 63.8%, compared to its current rate of barely 50%.
Free France: a Diversity and Inclusion Index is now available for use by companies National legislation On 17 November 2021, Élisabeth Moreno, Minister Delegate for Gender Equality, Diversity and Equal Opportunities at the Prime Minister’s Office and Amélie de Montchalin,…
France: Matmut mutual insurance company renews its agreement supporting those in situations of disability and care giving Diversity The Matmut insurance group has adopted a new company agreement addressing the employment of those in situations of disability and care giving. The agreement, which reinforces its inclusion policy, was unanimously signed by the employees’ representative organisations ( CFE-CGC, FO, CFDT, SN2A-CFTC and CGT). Covering the period 2022-2024, the text in particular provides for the hiring of at least 60 employees living with disability and establishes a system whereby care giving employees can access ‘working day donations’.
