We aim to champion the skills and abilities of people from all walks of life

O2 has a diverse customer base and we want the people who work for us to be equally diverse. 

We aim to:

• Provide a culture where everyone feels valued, respected and included.
• Serve all parts of society with the benefits of mobile communications.
• Reach out to under-represented groups in communities and society at large.

We take into account people’s different needs in the workplace, including respect for religious differences and practices. We help managers to plan employees’ work around religious festivals and other personal needs.

In 2007 we continued to measure our diversity policies in terms of age, gender, ethnicity and disability. We have a full-time diversity and inclusion manager who works to raise awareness and increase the diversity of job applicants. We sometimes work with external consultants to help us develop diversity policies and processes.

To enable us to employ the numbers of good people we need we have tried to become more creative and inclusive in our recruitment and training practices.

Tony’s story

Tony, who is visually impaired, joined O2 as a customer service advisor, after a former colleague recommended the company to him.

One of the things that attracted him to O2 was the online application process.  Tony found the online process more accessible because completing a hard copy application form can be difficult for someone who is visually impaired. Tony says he found O2 supportive at every stage. The adjustments he requested were put in place at the selection event and during training. These included the provision of a wide-screen monitor and specialist zoom text software. Any documents used during training were provided in large print too.

Tony also appreciated the opportunity to meet his training manager prior to starting with O2. Tony is keen to recommend O2 as an employer. He said: ‘They are superb and very supportive.’

The Telefónica Europe Board reviewed employee diversity data twice in the year.