Global companies doing business in today's world must create a diverse and inclusive workplace as part of their strategy. UniCredit is proud of its decade-long commitment to empower its highly diverse staff by creating an equal opportunities workplace where people of all ages, genders and cultural backgrounds can contribute to decision making.
UniCredit's diversity and inclusion targets were identified in 2009 through stakeholder engagement and have since been prioritised by our management as materially important to business strategy, and are therefore actively monitored. The bank's Global Policy for Gender Equality in 2013 established a framework for creating a level playing field throughout the organisation as a way of generating higher value. To reinforce our diversity and inclusion commitment, we created the position of Group Diversity and Inclusion Manager in 2018 who works alongside our CEO and other top executives. In addition, by signing the HM Treasury's Women in Finance Charter, the bank has committed to doubling its level of women in senior management roles at Group level to 20% by 2022.
Diversity alone is not enough. Creating an inclusive culture where all voices are heard unlocks performance and job satisfaction. We therefore recognise that inclusion is strategic for our Bank to remain a pan-European winner. It underpins UniCredit's guiding principles of Ethics and Respect. UniCredit expects its employees to contribute to creating and maintaining a work environment that is respectful and non-intimidating, and where differences in age, race, nationality, religion, gender and sexual orientation are embraced and promoted.
Our diversity and inclusion policies are a cornerstone of the human capital strategy of our business model, which has successfully delivered value creation over time. Promoting gender equality and inclusion is a way to improve the well-being of individuals and make our business strategiesmore sustainable in the long term. Serving our customers is our top priority, and to do this we rely on our highly qualified and committed employees who excel at working together.
UniCredit has joined the Valuable 500 - a global movement focused on putting disability themes on the business leadership agenda. UniCredit's commitment was signed at Group level by CEO Jean Pierre Mustier.
As part of our commitment to diversity and inclusion, we continue to actively work on strengthening the Group-wide pipeline of talented women. While there is still a long way to go, we are proud to say that UniCredit is making real progress in terms of recruitment and promotions.
In 2018, UniCredit joined the HM Treasury's Women in Finance Charter, an important step in our journey towards more balanced gender distribution throughout the organisation.
At UniCredit, gender balance is a priority.
Our ambition is to build an increasingly diverse and inclusive workplace reflective of our culture and society as a whole. We are focused on attracting, retaining and developing people with the talents, skills and experiences that help them and us succeed.
We support the publication of gender pay gap data.
Gender pay gap legislation has the purpose of addressing the imbalance in earnings between men and women in the workplace and was introduced in Great Britain in 2017 (England, Wales and Scotland) for employers with more than 250 employees. Transparency is very important to us and we support the publication of gender pay gap information. We believe that it is a key step towards making improvements to close the gender pay gap.
Diversity alone is not enough. Inclusion is about leveraging our differences and using them to solve problems better, become more innovative and perform more effectively. Creating an inclusive culture unlocks performance, making sure all voices are heard and companies optimise the "diversity of thoughts".
All this is why UniCredit believes in inclusion as a strategic business driver and is committed to creating an inclusive environment for our diversified workforce, where everyone with the capability to excel can do so.
