Atos’s Valuable 500 Commitment:
As an organisation committed to diversity and sustainability Atos has a longstanding commitment to disability inclusion and accessibility which was one of the original drivers of our membership of the Valuable500.
Our commitment has not wavered over the years during changes of leadership, and as the CEO, I am reconfirming our commitment, outlining our approach and concrete actions we are taking.
I am personally engaged as the executive mentor for Generation Valuable which is part of our commitment to learn directly from our disabled employees how we can create a culture of belonging, trust and opportunity at all levels of our organisation.
I know that disability is a diversity group that anyone can join at any time in their life. Disability is a transversal topic that impacts people regardless of ethnicity, gender, sexual preference and identity, religion or nationality.
For this reason disability inclusion and accessibility are key work streams in Atos diversity programs globally and we have a dedicated Accessibility & Digital Inclusion program that looks across all areas of our business.
Our programs are aligned with our ESG approach for which we are recognised as a top 50 global leading organisation. Whilst Disability inclusion is clearly a social topic for us, to move from disability confidence to disability competence we require strong business governance so our program combines the S (Social) and the G (Governance) of ESG. We have appointed an executive leader for accessibility as part of our global management team empowered to drive our program and grow our accessibility offerings.
To accelerate the work supporting the inclusion of people with disabilities, ensuring access and inclusion through digital technology and culture change, we are adopting a similar approach as we did for decarbonization or security. At Atos we say that we are treating exclusion like pollution.
We follow the decarbonization approach to measure impact on our supply chains and business ecosystems and continuously improve accessibility.
- Direct – Addressing the impact of Atos owned or controlled resources products and services:
- Designing and producing accessible products and services for our customers and employees across our portfolio.
- Reinforcing physical and digital accessibility compliance via internal control testing.
- Indirect – Addressing the impact from purchased resources, products and services through our work on accessibility in procurement:
- Buying accessible through changing our procurement processes starting in 2023 to include detailed accessibility evaluation criteria in RFP’s and RFQ’s and inclusion of Accessibility clauses in relevant new supplier contracts.
- Continuing to assess accessibility credentials of our suppliers with Ecovadis scorecards (70%) during CSR evaluations and starting in 2024, assess accessibility of our global supplier managed suppliers, during annual performance surveys.
- Influence – Address the impact of our organisation across the wider value chain both upstream and downstream through:
- Active participation in initiatives like Valuable500, Chairing the ILO Global Business Disability Network and Partnering with the Business Disability Forum.
- Role modelling accessibility as a trigger for innovation, building awareness, skills and increased employability through our collaborative work with GIZ, Zero Project and Ashoka Foundation in the ICT4Inclusion Challenge.
- Working to deliver the Paralympics and other key parasports events as well as supporting the broader diversity and inclusion initiatives of the International Paralympic Committee such as the “We The 15” movement which we use as a way to drive engagement on the topic of disability.
- Addressing the disability employment gap by removing barriers to applicants:
- Ensuring the application process is accessible and that applicants can access adjustments and support during the application process.
- Improving the language of our job descriptions to focus on outcomes not inputs to encourage more people with disabilities to apply.
- Addressing disability representation in senior management:
- Encouraging existing C-Suite & senior managers with disabilities to self-identify, supporting them to become positive role models for future generations.
- Supporting and mentoring the next generation of middle managers who identify as disabled in their career progression into senior roles replicating Generation Valuable across the organisation.
- Addressing the disability pay gap in a similar way to how we are already addressing the gender pay gap.
We believe strongly that training is key to organisational success, this is why we run Accessibility Apprenticeships, have an active Accessibility Champions Programme and have created a range of job specific curricula on how to embed Accessibility in their regular activity.
We can only be a disability inclusive organisation if the organisation ensures accessibility across the entire employee lifecycle, therefore we focus to:
- improve the Accessibility of our core employee tools as an integrated part of our Digital Transformation Program & in line with our global accessibility policy.
- ensure provision of Assistive Technology to Employees with disabilities with a systematic process by end of 2023.
- continuous improvement of the Accessibility of our Marketing and Social Media content.
- support and locally expand employee disability networks led by employees.
- building an Accessibility Management System to Track our progress.
