Verizon Communications
Living our values - Verizon commitment
Integrity is at the heart of everything we do. We are honest, ethical and upfront because trust is at the foundation of our relationships with our customers, our communities, our stakeholders and each other. [i]
Delivering the broadband promise - Accessible TV service
Verizon is staking its claim as a high-tech company that is committed to meeting the needs of all of its customers. This means bringing to market products that are accessible to everyone.
For example, while working with Boston public television station WGBH's National Center for Accessible Media to make our FiOS TV service more accessible to people with disabilities, we are considering not only what we thought our customers want … but what they told us they want.
One thing that our customers who use captioning have long desired is the ability to change the size of captions-to grow them if they have problems seeing small print or to shrink them if the captions seem too intrusive. Verizon is working to assure that this, and other advanced captioning features of digital television, are fully supported in our new FiOS TV service.
Today, we are deploying FiOS in more than 800 communities across 16 states. In every state where Verizon's fiber deployment is under way, Verizon is deploying fiber to one or more communities that reflect the broad diversity of our customer base. [ii]
Delivering the broadband promise - serving diverse communities
Customers with disabilities: Our goal is to ensure that our products and services are fully accessible to customers with disabilities. We continually collaborate with disability-community leaders on policy issues and, when needed, provide special assistance to customers with disabilities
We are committed to the goal of attaining universal accessibility, including access to our Web sites, handsets and video offerings.
Verizon uses universal design principles throughout the planning and development of new products and services to ensure accessibility. We also work with our partners and suppliers to adopt these principles. Our universal design principles are:
- To provide quality services that can reasonably accommodate a broad range of diverse users, including youths, individuals with disabilities and seniors
- To review existing services to determine which can be made more accessible
- To market and provision services in a manner consistent with universal design principles.
Verizon operates a cross functional team with members from the Verizon Centers for Customers with Disabilities, Verizon Labs, our Retail Markets Group and others. The team assists our lines of business during product planning so that disability considerations are included in the design and development of every product. In addition, the team works with our Strategic Alliances Group to coordinate outreach efforts to the disability community.
For example, Verizon Wireless is addressing the concerns of customers with disabilities by adding to its product inventory phones that can be used with digital hearing aids. Its customer service centers now handle TTY (teletypewriter) calls from customers, instead of depending on a telephone-relay operator to assist customers in communicating with us.
We also work side-by-side with the disability community to ensure that America's laws and regulations support accessibility. Verizon's resource group for employees with disabilities, Disabilities Issues Awareness Leaders (D.I.A.L.), has been active in this arena. Verizon actively supports events and projects conducted by some of the nation's leading disability-rights organizations. In 2005 for example, we were the lead corporate sponsor for the American Association for People with Disabilities Mentoring Day, and we worked with the American Foundation for the Blind to promote Braille literacy. [iii]
Competing through diversity
Verizon operates in an increasingly diverse marketplace. As a result, diversity is an integral part of our business strategy in all lines of business and functions-from workforce development and supplier relationships, to economic development, marketing and philanthropy
We have made significant progress over the years in building a workforce that relates to our customers, speaks their languages and reflects their tastes preferences. Today minorities represent:
- 33% of our overall employee base;
- 31% of our management team; and
- 15% of our executive team [iv]
Empowering employees with disabilities
The term "disability" covers a wide range of physical challenges, from hearing and visual impairments to quadriplegia and temporary conditions caused by accidents or illness. Verizon is committed to making full use of the talents of our employees with disabilities. In CAREERS & the disABLED magazine's 2005 annual survey, readers called Verizon "one of the top private-sector employers for whom they would most like to work or believeis progressive in hiring people with disabilities." The magazine cited several examples of Verizon's commitment to employees with disabilities, including:
- Working with the U.S. Department of Labor to determine how to increase the number of people with disabilities in the workforce.
- Establishing a Workforce Intervention team, which helps employees with disabilities get the resources and accommodations they need to do their jobs. Examples include: helping an employee with vision impairment to get special software that can magnify text on a computer, or installing a ramp or automatic door for someone who uses a wheelchair.
- Sponsoring the employee resource group, D.I.A.L. This group promotes personal and professional growth for employees with common abilities and interests, while also educating others about issues and concerns of people with disabilities [v]
Diversity recognition for Verizon
We have been recognized by a number of organizations for our diversity achievements. Some of the highlights:
- CAREERS & the disABLED magazine named Verizon the Private-Sector Employer of the Year for our commitment to recruiting, hiring and advancing people with disabilities.
- Employee Assistance Society of North America presented Verizon with a Corporate Award of Excellence for our innovative employee assistance program, VZ-LIFE (Life Initiatives for Employees). Verizon received the award for offering comprehensive work/life solutions to our diverse workforce
- Scientific American magazine named Verizon to its first list of the 55 top companies making a difference in the way people with disabilities live and work. [vi]