Diversity

Living and promoting diversity

Diversity management is a concept that is extremely important within an international working environment. 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.

Diversity champions an open working environment, in which employees are treated with respect and everyone is free to develop and reach their full potential. Diversity also means that teams combine a broad range of knowledge and experience. Swisscom sees diversity as something it must commit to internally within the company, as well as externally with its customers and partners. In the interest of diversity management, Swisscom is also committed to utilising the broad range of knowledge and experience of all its employees for the benefit of the company. 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 can arrange their daily work to suit their needs and to fit in with other areas of their lives. 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 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. The solutions promoted by Swisscom include flexible and mobile work and flexible working hours, which the majority of employees take advantage of. In addition, Swisscom offers annual working hours, a long-term working-time account, part-time working for women and men, as well as job sharing. All of these models are being supported by Swisscom. Employees may also work from home with the consent of their line manager. Swisscom bears the label “home office friendly”. 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. Paternity and adoption leave are also granted. In 2014, Swisscom developed two new models to improve the way in which different aspects of employee’s lives can be balanced: work&care, aimed at employees who care for relatives in their homes for a certain period of time, and the option of buying additional holidays.

82.3% of Swisscom’s workforce are Swiss nationals. The remaining 17.7% are made up of employees from 96 different countries, including 5.5% from Germany, 3.7% from Italy, 2% from France and 1% from Spain. This represents altogether 97 countries.

The average age of the population and hence the average age of Swisscom’s workforce is increasing. This poses opportunities as well as risks, which Swisscom addresses with its Generation Management initiative.

Swisscom’s corporate culture is characterised by openness and tolerance. Swisscom considers sexual orientation to be an important aspect of diversity. One isolated case of discrimination was reported in 2014.

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. The company honours its social responsibility and is committed to the integration of people with impairments. In doing so, Swisscom expands the effectiveness of diversity. It also offers training and integration services which enable employees to rejoin professional life after health- and accident-related absences. Around 0.6% of Swisscom employees currently suffer health problems. The company targets a quota of at least 1% of all staff.

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. As the average age of the wider population is steadily increasing, Swisscom has launched so-called BestAge projects.

These projects address the needs of older employees and customers and are implemented in call centres and shops. One such project for example, sees older employees advising older customers. Swisscom has also established 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 are also deployed in network construction as quality assurance specialists.

In the interests of employability management, Swisscom also supports employees in developing an awareness of and seizing opportunities to develop their skills and expertise. The company supports intergenerational communication primarily by promoting collaboration in teams and projects, and via management programmes focussing specifically on intergenerational dialogue.

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 that collects information and draws up basic principles in order to establish sustainable demographic management. Its members have developed a variety of practical solutions that could be put to good use by the participating companies.

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Equal pay

Swisscom takes great care to ensure equal pay for men and women. Its salary system is structured in such a way as to award equal pay for the equivalent duties, responsibilities and performance. Individual functions are assigned to function levels according to their requirements. For each function level, a salary band is defined that 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. This continually levels out salary differences. 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.

Swisscom also uses the federal government’s equal pay tool (Logib) to conduct periodic reviews of its salary structure, in order 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 that was set up by the employer and employee umbrella organisations in association with the federal government and ran until February 2014. Its objective was 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.

The protection of human rights within the Swisscom Group

The protection of human rights is an integral part of Swisscom’s corporate culture. There is no or only very little risk of human rights being breached within the Swisscom Group. Swisscom employs more than 18,272 FTEs in Switzerland and 2,391 FTEs in Italy, with no human rights risks having been identified at these locations. A further 462 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. Swisscom only employs a small number of staff from the “risk countries” listed by the rating agencies (for example Romania, Malaysia and South Africa). Moreover, 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.

Employee satisfaction

Swisscom conducts an employee job satisfaction survey every two years. In 2014, 83% of Swisscom employees in Switzerland took part. The results again revealed an above-average level of job satisfaction and a high level of employee commitment at Swisscom. The employees gave all of the areas under review a significantly better average score than in the 2012 survey, and some of the scores were above average compared to other companies in the sector. This is all the more notable given the fact that Swisscom has undergone significant change since the last survey.

Change in headcount

The number of employees in Switzerland increased to 18,272 FTEs in 2014 (+5.0% compared with 2013) and comprises 26.7% women and 73.3% men, a 5.9% increase in the proportion of women.

The proportion of women in middle management increased slightly in 2014 (+21 FTEs or +7.3%), while the proportion of women in top management was unchanged. The percentage of women at all management levels is 12.8% (headcount).

The age pyramid by gender remained similar year-on-year in 2014. The absence rate fell marginally for both men and women in 2014 to 2.8% (0.09 percentage points).

Pension fund

At the end of 2014, some 18,300 Swisscom employees and 6,300 pensioners were insured under comPlan. In 2014, comPlan posted a positive net return on assets of 4.9% (prior year: 8.9%). On 31 December 2014, the market value of fund assets amounted to CHF 8.3 billion (prior year: CHF 7.8 billion). In accordance with Swiss accounting standards for pension funds, the funding ratio is around 111% (prior year: 106%).

In January 2014, the Foundation Council approved the implementation of new BVG 2010 actuarial tables. These are intended to help the pension fund adopt a new strategy to absorb the risks associated with increased life expectancy as well as low interest rate levels. comPlan took the opportunity to issue new pension fund regulations and implement a new investment strategy.

Fringe benefits

All Swisscom employees enjoy fringe benefits in the form of a personal allowance on Swisscom services, including telephony, Internet and Swisscom TV services, and a Swiss Federal Railway’s (SBB) half-fare travel card. These fringe benefits are offered irrespective of function or whether the employee works full time or part time. Apprentices also receive an allowance. Swisscom also supports external childcare facilities through financial contributions and by providing access to free counselling services through the familienservice® family service. To assist working parents during the school holidays, Swisscom offers holiday childcare weeks at selected locations throughout Switzerland. It also pays the employer’s pension fund contribution for unpaid leave for up to a maximum of three months.

Supplementary regulations governing management staff

Members of management have the opportunity to take partly paid leave (sabbatical) of up to three months, depending on their length of service in management. Swisscom pays their salary for 30 working days and now also offers coaching. The employment contract remains valid, and managers are guaranteed to be able to return to their current function.

Members of management are also exempted from the obligation to pay a contribution to the collective insurances for illness and accident as well as management staff risk insurance in the event of death.