TIM's commitment to leadership by women

Women have won more ground in the world of work but there's still a long road ahead of us.

Gender equality on boards of directors is still a distant dream. Women take up 16.9% of spaces on boards of directors around the world, according to Deloitte Global's sixth report on "Women in the Boardroom". The percentage of directors on boards in Italy who are women has reached 29%, thanks to the "Golfo-Mosca" Law 120/2011, which mandates a so-called "pink quota."

When more women join an organisation, its ROE goes up by 7% and its EBITDA by 6%, according to companies that have studied this phenomenon (source: MacKinsey).

When the World Economic Forum published its “Global Gender Gap Index” at the end of 2019, they created the most respected tool for measuring the march of gender equality in all the world's countries. The index looks at disparities between men and women in terms of health and wellbeing, education, politics and forms of economic participation. Its estimates for 2019 reckon that, with things as they are, it will take almost 100 years to reach equality between men and women.

Happily though, ways of accelerating equality between the sexes are being eagerly pursued, and companies are becoming ever more attentive, active and keen to launch initiatives in this direction.

TIM itself chose 8 March 2020, Women's Day, to launch its “Women project: an inclusion initiative for all”, accompanied by a manifesto expounding the company's detailed commitments and a plan for improvement, the fruit of a hearing process that raised the most important areas for action.

This action, which we will take over the next few years, will cover the two macro-areas in the “TIM manifesto to reduce the gender gap”.

Climate and culture

• Spreading a company culture of equal opportunities for the sexes, one that work to erode prejudices.
• Processes for creating an ethical, respectful working environment in line with equal opportunities for the sexes.

Career

• Balancing the representation of women numerically in recruiting and career development (growth, roles, pay).
• Strengthening managerial skills and providing role models for female leadership, to improve the managerial models in the company.

Some ideas in the pipeline are: education on prejudices, language and behaviour; a policy on sexual harassment, verbal abuse and bullying; methods of empowering women (coaching, mentoring, role models) and measures to get women present at every step of an employee's journey.

It's another step on a path that we took years ago into the field of inclusion, one that's led us to many internal initiatives to promote a culture of diversity, and to practical actions to value everyone's contribution. 

TIM was also a supporting partner in 2010 of Valore D, the first association of Italian companies set up to fight for gender balance and for an inclusive culture in organisations and in the country as a whole. Within the company we have NoiD a women's association set up to value TIM's female staff, promoting an inclusive style of management that looks at merit.