Case study: How Mediaset promotes employee welfare and well-being

What are the material issues the company has identified?

In its 2018 Sustainability Report Mediaset identified a range of material issues, such as economic performance, customer satisfaction, responsible management of suppliers, intellectual property protection. Among these, promoting employee welfare and well-being stands out as a key material issue for Mediaset.

Stakeholder engagement in accordance with the GRI Standards              

The Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) defines the Principle of Stakeholder Inclusiveness when identifying material issues (or a company’s most important impacts) as follows:

“The reporting organization shall identify its stakeholders, and explain how it has responded to their reasonable expectations and interests.”

Stakeholders must be consulted in the process of identifying a company’s most important impacts and their reasonable expectations and interests must be taken into account. This is an important cornerstone for CSR / sustainability reporting done responsibly.

Key stakeholder groups Mediaset engages with:

How stakeholder engagement was made to identify material issues

To identify and prioritise material topics Mediaset engaged with key stakeholders – advertising investors, service and content suppliers, TV agents, financial analysts and Group employees – through workshops and online surveys.

What actions were taken by Mediaset to promote employee welfare and well-being?

In its 2018 Sustainability Report Mediaset reports that it took the following actions for promoting employee welfare and well-being:

• Promoting work-life balance for employees
• For over ten years, Mediaset’s Mediacenter has been active at the Milan and Rome offices, aiming to facilitate a better balance between employees’ professional and personal life. Mediacenter is an area on company premises that includes a series of useful and concrete services for improving the quality of life of people working for the Group. With an area of 3,000 square metres, Mediacenter is considered one of the most useful and welcoming welfare stores in Italy. The services offered, managed by external operators selected for their specific experience in the areas of reference, concern people care and activities necessary for family management, including the following:
  • medical centre, which provides the medical services of specialists from the San Raffaele Hospital to employees, free of charge
  • fitness centre
  • mini market
  • laundry/tailoring repair services
  • bank
  • post office
  • bookshop
  • travel agency
  • parapharmacy
  • shopping area
  • catering (bar, sandwich bar and restaurant)

• Safeguarding maternity and return to work after childbirth
• Mediaset safeguards maternity and return to work after the birth of children thanks to an important corporate initiative, the Nursery, which, since 2004, can accommodate the children of employees up to 3 years of age. This solution allows parents to entrust their children to specialised educators at the workplace during working hours, avoiding the need to sacrifice time and money on the care and custody of their children.

• Offering employee benefits
• The benefits envisaged for Mediaset Group employees in Italy are, mainly, of a social security and welfare nature. For all employees, there is a supplementary health care plan, 24-hour injury insurance policy and the supplementary pension fund. Mediaset also guarantees integration of the statutory remuneration provided for maternity for all its employees. For senior managers, in addition to these benefits, life and permanent disability insurance due to illness, as well as company cars depending on the role held, are also envisaged.

• Promoting workplace flexibility
• Mediaset has always identified and implemented specific tools that facilitate the reconciliation of time dedicated to private and professional life, facilitating the equilibrium between demand and supply of flexibility in the workplace, in line with the needs and opportunities that characterise the television business. Accordingly, trade union organisations have established, in agreements, a variety in working hours that meets company and staff needs on a flexible basis. In particular, unless otherwise required for operational reasons by organisational units, most employees can start work between 9.00 and 10.30, while other personnel in production areas have a 7-hour rather than an 8-hour working day. Moreover, from an operational point of view, reductions in working hours are generally granted to personnel requesting this in all the areas of the company, in the presence of the technical and organisational conditions and where the job permits so. To date, 332 people in the Mediaset Group have benefited from a part-time contract, 85% of whom are women. Reductions in working hours are used to a large extent by female workers who, after returning from maternity leave, ask for a reorganisation of their working life, benefiting from a few hours more each day to dedicate to their private life.

Which GRI Standards and corresponding Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) have been addressed?

The GRI Standard addressed in this case is: Disclosure 401-2 Benefits provided to full-time employees that are not provided to temporary or part-time employees

Disclosure 401-2 Benefits provided to full-time employees that are not provided to temporary or part-time employees corresponds to:

• Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 8: Promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all
• Business theme: Earnings, wages and benefits

78% of the world’s 250 largest companies report in accordance with the GRI Standards

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References:

1) This case study is based on published information by Mediaset, located at the link below. For the sake of readability, we did not use brackets or ellipses. However, we made sure that the extra or missing words did not change the report’s meaning. If you would like to quote these written sources from the original, please revert to the original on the Global Reporting Initiative’s Sustainability Disclosure Database at the link:

http://database.globalreporting.org/

2) https://www.globalreporting.org/standards/gri-standards-download-center/

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