Diversity and inclusion

Iren Group is committed to enhancing the diversity present within the Company, providing a healthy work-life balance and improving the quality of the working environment. The aim is to become a team, to add value to the outcome of individual work and to increase a feeling of belonging, creating shared social, cultural, professional and intellectual terrain.

A commitment also recognised by the award assigned to Iren by Top Utility 2020 for its commitment to policies favouring diversity, inclusion and social responsibility in the management of human resources and company strategy.

The Group guarantees non-discrimination of personnel in selection, hiring, training, management, development and remuneration policies, as provided by the corporate Code of Ethics. This commitment has guaranteed that no related breaches occurred in 2020, continuing the past trend.

There were no breaches associated with discrimination policies in 2020.

The Group has been running a series of “diversity” programmes for several years which, starting from 2015, saw commitment and consistent structuring with the establishment of a body called Personnel Welfare and Services, within which, in 2020, a specific Well-being & Diversity area was formalised, focused, among other things, on diversity inclusion, work-life balance and the development and management of initiatives aimed at the well-being of employees. Therefore, it is a path of application of inclusion policies that recognises and values differences, actively managing them and leveraging them to increase the competitiveness of the Company. The main issues of focus are gender, age, disability and nationality differences, all areas in which the Group has implemented various programmes and initiatives.

Diversity policies take concrete form, for example, in the adoption of new flexible working arrangements to facilitate work-life balance, in non-discrimination during the selection process, in the enhancement of skills, in the promotion of female managers and training, through specific programmes aimed at increasing the level of awareness of diversity topics and creating an inclusive work environment. Aware of the fact that the path to achieving gender equality also passes through an adequate presence of women in all sectors that will offer the most outstanding professional and career opportunities in the future, the Group participates in different collaboration programmes with external actors. Significant in this context is the collaboration, already started in 2018, with Valore D – an association of companies that promotes diversity, talent and female leadership for the growth of companies and the country –, which has prepared a “manifesto” for female employment, signed by Iren Group. The document consists of nine points through which the Company undertakes, gradually and compatibly with its sector and size specificities, to adopt clear and measurable objectives, with performance indicators and periodic monitoring, to be shared internally. Awareness-raising activities were carried out in 2020 that, due to the Covid-19 health emergency period, were mainly developed in digital mode to achieve the objectives described within the “manifesto”.

Iren, together with 26 other public service companies associated with Utilitalia, also applies to the “Patto Utilitalia – La Diversità fa la differenza” [Utilitalia Pact – Diversity makes the difference], consisting of a list of seven commitments to concretely favour inclusion and diversity of gender, age, culture and ability within company policies.

The Role Model project continued in 2020, in collaboration with the ELIS association, a non-profit educational organisation that targets young people, professionals, and businesses to respond to the school-work gap, youth unemployment and contribute to the sustainable development of organisations. Through the testimony of Role Models, the project aims to orient secondary school students to follow their aspirations, with particular attention to raising awareness among girls regarding technical-scientific disciplines, so-called STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics).

Again with a view to STEM, the Group supported the third edition of the Ragazze Digitali [Digital Girls] project, a summer camp, this year in digital format, organised by the Reggio Emilia and Modena section of the EWMD (European Women’s Management Development – international network) association and the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, aimed at young people who have completed their 3rd and 4th year at all high schools, intending to bring them closer to IT, programming and the culture of doing, and to stimulate their digital creativity using the learn by doing approach.

In 2020, Iren also started participating in the Luiss Business School Data Girls – GROW (Generating Real Opportunities for Women) project, which aims to promote, support and improve the personal and professional development of female students of the Luiss Business School, with particular attention to their inclusion in the world of work and the promotion of their professional careers, aimed at achieving top positions in companies, administrations, bodies, universities and other organisations.

Female personnel

The Group’s 2,089 women represent more than 24.7% of the total number of employees, an increase compared to 2019 (23.9%), the year from which the company San Germano was consolidated, which resulted in a discontinuity from the past, by the type of activity managed.

With regard to skill development, the promotion of women’s managerial skills and the development of work-life conciliation tools, the anti-discrimination policies implemented during the selection stage have increased the attractiveness of the Group for women, also within professions that are typically characterised by a strong technical component traditionally “reserved” mainly for men. The recent hires of young female graduates, even into strictly technical sectors such as waste or site & network engineering, is evidence of this.

The presence of women amongst junior managers and white-collar workers is higher than that in the overall Group population.

Most female personnel (approximately 68.6%) are executives, junior managers and white-collar workers (overall constituting more than 47.4% of total personnel, compared to the 52.6% of blue-collar workers). The analysis, also in consideration of the mainly technical characteristics of the managed activities, revealed a non-discriminatory situation for women, who represent around 35.7% of executives, junior managers and white-collar workers.

Immagine

Equal remuneration between men and women is ensured by the application of the National Collective Labour Agreements in which minimum salaries for each employment category are defined. The average basic salary per the qualification of women (details are available in the section “Iren People: the numbers” at the end of the chapter) is, however, slightly lower than that of men, due to three types of factors: a higher percentage of women working part-time (11.9% of women compared to 1.4% of men), the lower average working seniority of women compared to that of men, high incidence of qualified technical roles that historically come from the world of education predominantly male. Through careful selection policies and the introduction of a reward system with consistent policies for all company personnel, the Group has set itself the objective, insofar as possible, of rebalancing this situation, also in consideration of the reference labour market.

A vital recognition demonstrates the commitment to implementing the policies launched on gender diversity: for the first time, Iren Group has entered the Bloomberg Gender-Equality Index (GEI), which guarantees transparency in the gender practices and policies implemented by the companies listed on the Stock Exchange, thus deepening and expanding the environmental, social and governance (ESG) data available to investors and the financial community. The index measures gender equality based on five pillars: female leadership and talent pipeline, equal pay and gender pay equity, inclusive culture, anti-harassment policies and advocacy towards women. The inclusion in the Bloomberg index, in the case of Iren, reflects a high level of transparency and overall performance consistent with the five pillars of the framework.

In line with the provisions of the company’s Articles of Association and current regulations on equal access to the boards of directors and boards of statutory auditors of listed companies, a balance between genders is ensured in Iren, with 40% of its members being women.

On the whole, on the Boards of Directors for Group Companies there are 33 women, amounting to approximately 26.4% of total members (125 people of which 39% in the 30 to 50 age group and 61% over 50).

In 2020, 294 employees took parental leave (129 female and 165 male), and 282 took maternity leave (obligatory, optional, early), also taking advantage of the various options for working hours that the Group makes available, on all smart working, the specific training that provides in these cases and the services described in the Corporate Welfare paragraph. Upon their return to work, all employees were able to resume the job they had filled before their period of absence or a job with equal professional content in cases where organisational changes occurred in the meantime that meant they could not return to the same position.

Also, Iren Group guarantees disabled personnel the conditions for the best possible integration into the workforce, operating under current legislation.

N.B. The personnel data contained in the Sustainability Report do not contain the data of the former Unieco Environment Division.