Alcatel-Lucent

including career fairs, regional conferences, and student interaction events such as information sessions, Alcatel-Lucent site tours and networking events. Members of our university Relations team participate in such higher education groups as the National Society of Black Engineers, Society of Women Engineers, Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers, American Indian Science & Engineering Society, Institute of Electrical & Electronics Engineers, Eta kappa Nu, and Historical Black Colleges & Universities.

As part of Alcatel-Lucent's commitment to diversity, our human resources teams in North America support employee business partner groups such as EQuAL (Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, & Transgendered); ABLE (African Americans); IDEAL (Individuals Dedicated to Enabling Accessibility in Life); 4A (Asian Pacific Association for Advancement); HISPA (Hispanic Association of Alcatel-Lucent); LuNA (united Native Americans of Alcatel-Lucent); WLN (Women's Leadership Network). Strongly committed to advancing equality between men and women, Ben Verwaayen joined 38 other CEOs on June 21, 2010 to sign the CEO Statement of Support for the Women's empowerment Principles - equality Means Business. This worldwide initiative was launched on March 8, 2010 at the u.N. by the u.N. Development Fund for Women (uNIFEM) and the u.N. Global Compact.

As a sign of our commitment to gender equality, CEO Ben Verwaayen participated in the public launch of the gender equality Standard at Davos 2011 with other multinational companies. Ben has also been invited to serve the WeF gender Parity group for 2011-2012. The WEF Gender Parity Group is a multi-stakeholder community of highly influential and committed leaders - 50% women and 50% men - from business, politics, academia, media and civil society. It aims to identify the most successful interventions for closing gender gaps and develop a framework for gender parity that can be widely replicated. It meets once a year, on the occasion of the WEF Annual Meeting at Davos.

Alcatel-Lucent is among seven multinational companies that helped the gender equality Project launch its ground-breaking global certification and assessment methodology for gender equality in the workplace in January 2011. The Group got involved early in 2010 when it decided to work with the Project to test and streamline the assessment methodology as part of a pilot program. As the target legal entity for the pilot, we chose India, recognized as a challenging market both from an industry and global perspective on gender equality. The assessment methodology is designed to provide a clear picture of a company's progress on gender equality as measured in terms of equal pay for equivalent work, recruitment and promotion, training and mentoring, work-life balance and the company culture. Alcatel-Lucent also took part in best practice workshops with the GEP in late 2010 and early 2011.

A major milestone was reached in France in 2010 with the signature of a three-year gender equality agreement. The agreement calls for promoting women candidates for all job openings, especially in management, progressive elimination of salary disparities, hiring more women engineers and measures to improve work/life balance including maternity leave.

In North America, our anti-harassment & non-discrimination policies are posted at all Alcatel-Lucent facilities. Anti-harassment and non-discrimination training is required of all new hires during on-boarding process and for all employees every two years. The Ethics Point reporting tool provides all employees and contractors with the opportunity to report suspected harassment, discrimination and retaliation. All reports are investigated in a timely manner by HR Investigators, with the assistance of the legal team and HR Management as needed, followed by timely appropriate action. In the U.S., Alcatel-Lucent has an Affirmative Action plan for women, minorities, veterans, and persons with disabilities. In Canada, Alcatel-Lucent has an Employee Equity Plan for women, visible minorities, aboriginals, and persons with disabilities.

Women's Leadership network
The Women's Leadership Network is one of seven Alcatel-Lucent Employee Business Partners, voluntary groups of employees who come together in support of common goals and interests. With active chapters worldwide, the Women's Leadership Network seeks to provide an avenue for all women in Alcatel-Lucent to demonstrate, share and grow their leadership abilities, to provide an environment for women to mentor and be mentored, and to serve as a positive presence within the business and throughout the communities in which we work.

This is a great source of our strength and we firmly believe that it allows each of us to develop new ways of looking at issues and to contribute innovative ideas and creativity. In today's global environment we believe more than ever that it is crucial to understand the cultures, customs and needs of employees, customers and regional markets. As a global enterprise, we seek to ensure that our employee body reflects the diversity of our business environment. Our Statement of Business Principles and our Human Rights policies clearly confirm our engagement to recognize and respect the diversity of people and ideas, and to ensure equal opportunities.
In 2010, we focused on integrating members of the so-called Y-Generation (individuals born between the late 1970's and the mid-1990's) through partnership with schools and universities and targeted recruiting plans. We launched a Generation Diversity Project in the Benelux countries and other local programs in the France, Germany and the U.S.: all aim to better understand the specific work habits and expectations of various populations and communities.

Local initiatives:

America's top corporations
The Women's Business Enterprise National Council named Alcatel-Lucent to its annual listing of America's Top Corporations for Women's Business Enterprises in 2010 for the fourth consecutive year. This is the only national award in the U.S. honoring corporations for world-class programs that create level playing fields for women's business enterprises to compete for corporate contracts.

Equality recognized in Spain
In December 2010, Alcatel-Lucent was among 36 Spanish companies awarded with the national distinction of "Company Equality" ("Igualdad en la empresa") by the Spanish Ministry of Health, Social Policy and Equality.

In France, as part of an agreement with trade unions, the Group has committed to recruit at least 80 disabled employees by the end of 2011 as part of the Mission Handicap program. Beyond the recruitments, Mission Handicap requires Alcatel-Lucent to ensure that disabled employees benefit from easier workplace accessibility, workstation adjustments, telecommuting, dedicated equipment and accommodation facilities. Originally created in 2008, the Mission Handicap agreement has been renewed through the end of 2011.

In 2010, the Group created a non-profit association in France, called @talentegal (at equal talent), to help disabled students follow post-graduate studies in engineering or other fields and gain employment at Alcatel-Lucent. Students participating in the @talentegal program benefit from an internship or other work experience at an Alcatel-Lucent location and specific training provided by the Group and its partners.

In France, Alcatel-Lucent has also established partnerships with groups that support the disabled, such as Braillenet and the Fondation Garches. T hanks to our partnership with JobinLive, Alcatel-Lucent also took part in the launch of Handivisio, a program involving installation of video-recruitment terminals to help disabled students create and broadcast video resumes.

In the U.S., reasonable accommodations are provided for persons with disabilities. Managers are encouraged to, and in most situations do, make accommodations to employees wherever possible. Accommodation requests that cannot be satisfied by managers are referred to the Accommodation R eview Board to ensure that reasonable requests are not denied.

Alcatel-Lucent solutions

Furthermore, Alcatel-Lucent offers a variety of tools for telephony and unified communication which can be integrated into the IT environment of a disabled person and can be easily adapted to that person’s requirements according to their sensory and mobility capacities. More information here.