Rostelecom

Rostelecom contributes to universal and affordable access to digital technologies by providing public Wi-Fi access points for people living in rural areas.

Rostelecom demonstrates leading practice in the area of digital skills development. It is one of the few companies in the benchmark with initiatives across all levels of technical skills, from basic to advanced. Rostelecom’s ABC of the Internet computer literacy programme targets senior citizens. The company also has a programme GROWTH, which provides remote learning to children living in orphanages. The company also provides high-speed internet to schools.

The company discloses a commitment to cybersecurity and reports how it manages and responds to information security threats. It also follows leading practice by making its information security management certificate publicly available.

Rostelecom makes venture capital investments and supports start-ups through incubators and innovation labs. It uses the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as a framework for its sustainability activities.

Rostelecom can support digital inclusivity for women and girls through a specific initiative. While the company discloses the number of its employees with disabilities, it can also disclose information on its accessibility initiatives for people with disabilities.

The company can commission a third-party assessment of its digital skills programmes in order to assess their impact and identify strengths and areas of improvement.

Rostelecom can report how responsibility for information security is handled within the company. It can also disclose information on data breaches. No publicly available evidence was found regarding Rostelecom’s commitment to child online safety and the company can initiate actions in this area.

Rostelecom can demonstrate support for open-source projects and standards. The company can expand on its activities for the tech innovation ecosystem by supporting start-ups founded by persons from underrepresented groups. Rostelecom can also demonstrate its support for inclusive innovation by disclosing the proportion of its women employees working in tech roles and the ethical principles it follows in its research and development (R&D) activities.

The company discloses that it has a grievance mechanism accessible to all workers to raise human rights complaints or concerns. However, no publicly available policy statement was found of the company’s commitment to respecting, or requiring its business relationships to respect, all the labour fundamentals outlined by the ILO core labour rights. Furthermore, the company does not disclose a process to identify, assess and act on the salient human rights risks in its own operations and in its business relationships.

Rostelecom discloses the proportion of its total direct operations workforce covered by collective bargaining agreements, as well as a gender breakdown of its total direct operations workforce for each employee category. It also discloses a target to achieve 40% female representation in management and across the entire organisation by 2025. However, even though the company has a statement regarding the health and safety of its employees, no evidence was found that the company has a publicly available policy statement committing to respect worker health and safety. Additionally, the company does not disclose a policy commitment stating that it does not require workers to work more than the regular and overtime hours. Rostelecom also does not disclose whether it has achieved paying all its workers a living wage or report a time-bound target for this.

The company has a publicly available policy statement prohibiting bribery and corruption, but it does not include anti-bribery and anti-corruption clauses in its business relationship contracts. Also, the company does not publicly disclose its process to identify and report bribery and corruption. Further, the company does not disclose it lobbying and political engagements and associated expenditures.