The company, counting almost 8,400 employees in 27 countries, promotes an inclusive working culture where cancer and other health issues are not a taboo, supporting employees’ career progression and development opportunities with no discrimination or bias related to employee past or present health condition.
The Europ Assistance Cancer Chart gives tangible and actionable guidelines to endorse this commitment with four different steps:
- Promoting Awareness Cancer and Prevention: Europ Assistance and its management team will launch a yearly communication campaign to raise knowledge and awareness on cancer, and will implement, on a yearly basis, concrete initiatives to promote health behaviours and prevention against cancer (conference, meetings, sponsor healthy lifestyle…).
- Providing possibility for screening: Europ Assistance will provide to all employee paid work hours to take cancer screening test at least every two years (minimum 3 hours per employee every two years).
- Supporting employees affected by cancer: Europ Assistance will offer to employees diagnosed with cancer free second medical opinion to offer the best medical consultation possible.
- Accompanying employees when back: Europ Assistance awill accompany and support employees when back from sick leave to be reintegrated in the company life (by assigning a trained company buddy or providing dedicated coaching).
This Cancer Chart is in line with the actions Europ Assistance already led worldwide to raise its employees’ awareness on breast cancer (read “Fighting with breast cancer: our colleagues share their own stories”, during Pink October, 27 October 2020) and on both prostate and testicular cancers (read “#Movember: lutter contre le syndrome John Wayne”, 30 November 2020).
Europ Assistance is a worldwide company with a deep medical DNA, employing about 400 doctors and nurses worldwide to provide medical assistance to travelers in more than 200 countries (e.g. repatriation, sanitary evacuation). Europ Assistance Health business line also provides first level of medical advice (medical orientation such as MyClinic, telemedecine, e-prescription, AI symptom checker, digital health portals), complex cases management (second medical opinion, discharge planning management, rehab care plans) and continuous support (homecare assistance, cancer assistance) to customers, directly or through partnerships with Insurers and Health care providers.
Virginie Babinet, Europ Assistance Group Chief Transformation Officer and Generali Diversity & Inclusion Council Member, says: “As management team we must fight side by side of our employees who are experiencing the difficult and painful battle against cancer, and, when hopefully the disease is over, accompany and include the employee back to work without prejudice or biases It has personal importance to me, as woman who fought cancer, that Europ Assistance is frontline to simplify life of our employees during their fight”.
For Christina Anagnostopoulou, Europ Assistance Group Chief HR & Organization Officer: “When people ask me what we do in Europ Assistance I answer ‘We Care’ Our caring DNA and our Mission From distress to relief anytime anywhere is not only valid for the external customer but also for the internal one We are committed to supporting the employees that are battling cancer and also making sure they are treated with fairness and care once are back in the office Because We Care”.
