Equal opportunities

Telefónica O2 UK aims to treat all employees equally.

Our policies and practices are intended to comply with international, European and national regulation and voluntary codes of practice and to ensure our managers challenge negative gender, ethnicity and disability stereotypes. We also strive to ensure there is no discrimination on grounds of age, religion, beliefs or sexuality.

We try to support employees in balancing their life at work and home, to respect and value different backgrounds and perspectives and to make appropriate adjustments in the workplace to help people with disabilities or other special needs.

We also recognise the benefits of a mixed-age workforce, which is free from intolerance and respects different personal lifestyles.

The average age of our workforce is 31 years old.

Gender

Our business is relatively well balanced in terms of gender: more than 40 per cent of our employees are women. O2 offers flexible and home-working arrangements where possible. A high proportion of women who take maternity leave return to the business, many of them part time.

There are 49 women in senior management positions within Telefónica O2 UK. 

In 2007 we continued to try to provide for the needs of people with different religious beliefs, particularly in our call centres where diversity is at its greatest.

We gave line managers more information on key religious dates, clothing, food and rituals in 2006 and this enabled teams to plan work schedules to suit all. The initiative provides two-way benefits: it helps to cover traditional holidays like Christmas when diverse faiths and cultures have different priorities; it enables us to respect and plan for time off that suits the requirements of various faiths.

Non-discrimination and human rights

O2 has a strict policy of non-discrimination.

The United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Labour Organization declarations guide our employment policies. We aim to comply with European Union and national legislation on employment issues.

We benchmark our policies against these universal codes to ensure compliance and we have established a human rights policy to uphold the approach.

We aim to treat everyone fairly, impartially and without prejudice, regardless of race, nationality, ethnicity, religious affiliation, gender, sexual orientation, marital status, age, disability or caring responsibilities.

We have put in place several codes of conduct, policies and principles to achieve this commitment. These include our Business Principles; ethical procurement policy; Human Resources policies; and health, safety and environment policies.

New legislation on age discrimination, which became effective in October 2006, has been built into our policies. This prevents unfair discrimination on age grounds – not only for employment, but also for training, retirement and redundancy.