At Telefónica we’re celebrating International LGBT+ Pride Day by once again reinforcing our commitment to diversity and inclusion. As well as being a matter of social justice, it’s also an important driving force for our business, making us stronger and more competitive. For us, diversity in any of its forms represents growth and talent, since diverse teams enhance professional development and stimulate innovation within the organisation, boosting our performance.
In this regard, we aim to ensure the well-being of all people working at Telefónica, regardless of their sexual orientation, gender identity or expression. Therefore, the inclusion of LGBT+ employees in our company is a vital part of our strategy, which also seeks to promote the diversity of gender, culture, skills, training and education, work experience, leadership styles, etc.
In short, we’re firmly committed to diversity and inclusion in all the societies in which we’re present, where we “offer our technology to set aside our differences”, in a context in which we’re aware that there’s still a long way to go.
LGBT+ diversity highlights in the last year
- The Spanish Federation of Lesbians, Gays, Trans and Bisexuals, Intersex and more (FELGTBI+) recently named Telefónica as one of the companies most committed to this community. The organisation says that, together with Google and NYX, we lead the commitment to equality and inclusion of LGBT+ people in Spain.
- The employee resource groups (ERGs) are gaining strength and presence in the countries where we operate. In this regard, the launch and growth in Hispanoamerica of the group “Sostener”, which promotes at least one awareness-raising initiative per month in the region, is a particular milestone.
- We continue to support the integration of transgender people into the labour market. In Spain, in addition to participating in the FELGTBI+’s YesWeTrans project, we’re organising employability workshops for transgender people and have launched a guide to the gender transitioning process at work, which aims to guide both the transitioning employee and their manager through the whole process.
- In Brazil, we now have over 70 transgender employees and expect to reach 100 in 2023. We also fund 100% of the training for our transgender employees.
- In the UK, we’ve trained HR teams in the inclusion of transgender and non-binary talent. Our employees can also now choose to express their preferred pronoun on their company ID badges.
- We have an extensive network of agreements and collaborations that help us to plan our way forward in this respect and make our progress visible. Locally, we have partnerships with entities such as FELGTBI+ and REDI in Spain, Stonewall in the UK, and the Fórum de Empresas e Direitos LGBT+ and TransEmpregos in Brazil.
- To celebrate LGBT+ Pride Month, we’ve reinforced our programme of training and awareness-raising activities in the different countries where we’re present through courses, workshops, employee events and participation in the main pride parades.
We also continue to move forward on this journey to promote LGBT+ equality in society, just as we have been doing since 2018, when we started through two key projects. First, we adhered to the United Nations Standards of Conduct for Business, and second, we participated in the ADIM project for “advancing the management of LGBT+ diversity”, to raise awareness among social agents, business leaders and the university population, with the aim of developing more inclusive corporate policies.
None of this would’ve been possible, however, without a well-established structure of internal bodies and roles that monitor the progress of Telefónica on equality, diversity, and inclusion. In this regard, we have a Global Diversity Council and a Transparency Committee, among other bodies.
In short, all these highlights and initiatives evidence that at Telefónica we place people and values at the core. We aimto propel our future and transformation in order to grow as a company and also as a society, to which we offer all our technology to set aside our differences.
#WeConnectDiversity
