Be SACE: A Professional Community And Beyond

For over 40 years, SACE’s mission, the Italian export credit agency, has been to help companies grow in Italy and abroad. To carry out this task successfully, SACE relies on the expertise and commitment of its people, a human capital of great value.

Therefore, for SACE it is essential to enhance its collaborators, placing professionalism at the centre of the work environment.

Indeed, the Group offers important opportunities for professional and personal growth, making every effort to ensure that everyone is able to reconcile work and private life in a balanced way.

Being part of SACE means being part of a working community attentive to people’s needs. A working environment where efforts are made on a daily basis to recognise and value diversity as a source of wealth, opposing all forms of discrimination and striving to promote equal opportunities. Indeed, gender equality and diversity & inclusion are undoubtedly two of SACE’s founding values.

SACE certainly attaches great importance to the enhancement of female talent and leadership in the business world, as demonstrated by its membership to Valore D, the first association of companies in Italy that for 10 years has been committed to the mission of gender balance and an inclusive culture in organisations and in our country.

Female empowerment is also promoted at SACE through training programmes and the Women in Export Community, launched by SACE with the aim of generating connections between women from the entrepreneurial, institutional and association spheres who are also involved in the export and internationalisation sector in Italy. In addition, 30 female colleagues under 35 have the opportunity to join the Young Women Network, the main Italian network of young female professionals.

However, for SACE the promotion of women’s empowerment also passes through creating awareness by learning how to recognise gender-based violence, prevent it and fight it. These are the pillars on which the partnership between SACE and D.i.Re -Women in the Network Against Violence, is based. A collaboration that kicked off in February 2022 with the training webinar ‘Knowing Gender Violence. Preventing and combating’, with the aim of informing and raising awareness among SACE people about violence against women, also in the workplace.

Furthermore, the Group supports parenthood, guaranteeing a wide use of smart working, teleworking and part-time work and granting parents–both mothers and fathers- extraordinary paid leave to meet any type of need.

As a result of such a great consideration for the issue, SACE was recently awarded for the first time the title of one of the best employers for women in Italy by ‘Italy’s Best Employers for Women 2022’, conducted by the German Quality Institute ITQF. Among the criteria taken into consideration for the study were the percentage of women among colleagues; the Parity Index, which groups together a number of issues such as gender pay gap, meritocracy, justice, gender equity and time management; work-life balance; and involvement of female employees in company changes.

Moreover, precisely because at SACE values like diversity and inclusion are seen as a success factor for the individual and the group, the Group launched a Diversity & Inclusion Policy, which consolidates industry best practices, with the aim of accompanying the Group in a cultural transformation.

The main areas of focus are gender equality, LGBT+ inclusion, support for parenthood, closing generational and intercultural gaps and the integration of colleagues with disabilities. In fact, some of the main issues addressed in the implemented projects were gender discrimination, inclusive language, unconscious bias, gentle leadership, managing coming out in the family and at work, motherhood and fatherhood, empowerment of people with disabilities and mental health and frailty in the pandemic period.

Another step in this direction was the establishment, in 2021, of the first corporate Community dedicated to Diversity & Inclusion issues. This team was born from the voluntary action of a group that came together to spread and enact an inclusive culture in the company, through the sharing of ideas and proposals for action.

“At SACE we have always worked to create a business community where people come first.–declares Gianluca Cabula, SACE Diversity Manger. –Many studies show that groups composed by people of different culture, gender, age, skills, orientation and personal background make a difference in terms of creativity, innovation and business development. This is why, at SACE, we strive daily to promote these values both within our Group and in the companies, especially SMEs, which we support. Indeed, internally, awareness on these issues is promoted through the D&I team. On the other hand, externally, we are committed to conveying these messages to SMEs through training courses that complement traditional technical and financial training”.

SACE’s focus on these issues is not only through internal and external awareness-raising activities. Indeed, these concepts are reflected in SACE’s spaces that, through the New Views of Working project, have been redesigned to adapt to the new way of experiencing work in the company, between digital innovation and physical spaces with a focus on environmental and human sustainability.

Last but not least, work-life balance is considered a fundamental element by SACE, as it is an essential condition for people’s well-being and efficiency. Indeed, the success of a company also derives from the satisfaction of its people. SACE is inspired by a work-life balance logic that allows each person to seek the right balance between professional fulfilment and family life.

All this contributes to creating a working environment where people can be free to express their individuality and potential, thus contributing to the growth of the SACE Group.