“Embrace all your abilities – embrace all of you”

Again this year, Generali joins the celebrations for the International Day of Persons with Disabilities (IDPD), whose annual observance on 3 December was proclaimed in 1992 by the United Nations to promote an understanding of disability issues and mobilize support for the dignity, rights, and well-being of persons with disabilities in all spheres of society and development.

This year’s theme is "United in action to rescue and achieve the SDGs for, with and by persons with disabilities". To mark the 2023 recurrence, Generali has orchestrated a series of initiatives reaffirming the Group’s dedication to ensuring workplace accessibility, embracing inclusive practices, and promoting awareness about creating an environment that values, respects and appreciates people for their strengths, so that persons with disabilities feel enabled and empowered to bring their own talents to the table on an equal basis with their colleagues.

Fifteen percent of the global population lives with a disability. As persons with disabilities and chronic conditions still face limited opportunities and lack full access to many products and services, companies play a key role in contributing to making inclusion a part of everyday life.

In 2022, Generali became a member of The Valuable 500, a global business collective made up of 500 business CEOs and their companies, innovating together for disability inclusion and driving lasting system change for the 1.3 billion people worldwide who live with a disability. Generali also joined Valuable 500 “Generation valuable”, a global programme aimed to address the gap in disability talent at all levels by creating an opportunity for leaders to support future executives with disabilities through training and coaching.

As a key component of Generali’s People Strategy, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion are at the heart of a number of initiatives organized at Group level during the whole year. To mark this year’s IDPD in particular, hundreds of events have been held across all geographies and business units, promoting disability awareness through experiential events, informative and inspirational conferences, and webinars.

One such event was organized by Generali’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Community of Practice - an internal network of Generali volunteers from all over the world who are passionate about DEI and eager to make a difference – in collaboration with the social enterprise My Ability, and was dedicated to effective disability management practices, to look at different ways companies can foster a culture of disability inclusion.

In the German-speaking area, Generali has joined the MyAbility Talent Program, which supports students and graduates with disabilities in entering the world of work. During the event, participants highlighted all the benefits deriving from fostering disability inclusion: it contributes to breaking biases about disability, raising awareness about accessibility and inclusive practices, and ultimately leverages usually untapped talent pools that can contribute to shaping an authentic, loyal and inclusive culture.

As part of its Diversity, Equity and Inclusion commitment, Generali is constantly working to improve accessibility for persons with disabilities and impairments. It means ensuring that every person has access to opportunities and feels empowered to take ownership and challenge biases leading the transformation with a human touch.

This also means listening to customers, to their needs and expectations, as well as lead digital innovation and make insurance products accessible anytime, anywhere, and to anyone. 

As a way to make all Generali digital products accessible by 2025 - following the European Accessibility Act (EAA) directive - we are working on the ‘three pillars’ of accessibility, namely design, content and code, in order to continuously improve our properties’ accessibility level by concrete and steady actions.

At the core of this objective, the standard compliance is very important as well as our purpose of understanding of all types of users, showing empathy in building products and services where everyone can have access to information: it is all about caring and involving people, making sure they all have access to the best user experience possible.