Fannie Mae Recognized as a ‘Best Place to Work for Disability Inclusion’ by 2022 Disability Equality Index

WASHINGTON, DC – Fannie Mae (FNMA/OTCQB) today announced it has been recognized as a “Best Place to Work for Disability Inclusion,” earning a top score on the 2022 Disability Equality Index® (DEI®) for the third consecutive year. Launched in 2015 by Disability:IN and The American Association of People with Disabilities, the DEI is a comprehensive benchmarking tool that helps companies build a roadmap of measurable, tangible actions they can take to achieve disability inclusion and equality.

“We’re honored to again be named a ‘Best Place to Work for Disability Inclusion’ by the Disability Equality Index,” said Sharifa Anderson, Senior Vice President and Chief Diversity and Inclusion (D&I) Officer, Fannie Mae. “An incredible amount of passion and dedication to D&I is evident at all levels of Fannie Mae as we continuously work to create an environment where employees with disabilities have an opportunity to thrive and contribute to our mission, challenge the status quo to foster a more inclusive company, and advance an equitable housing system for the renters and homeowners we serve.”

The 2022 Disability Equality Index measured: Culture and leadership; enterprise-wide access; employment practices, such as benefits, recruitment, employment, education, retention and advancement and accommodations; community engagement; and supplier diversity.

Fannie Mae is committed to promoting D&I opportunities for its workforce, suppliers, business partners, and the U.S. housing sector. Led by the Office of Minority and Women Inclusion, these efforts include greater transparency, accountability, and focus on measurable outcomes for the company’s D&I strategy and contributions to the industry. Additional ongoing internal and external efforts include:

• Supporting employee resource groups (ERGs), such as the In-Visible Inclusion ERG, which seeks to empower and support employees with disabilities by providing education, raising awareness, and ensuring inclusion of individuals with disabilities. The In-Visible Inclusion ERG hosts educational sessions; panel discussions on inclusivity topics; employee benefits overviews; annual events for National Disability Employment Awareness Month; and the Caregivers Circle, a series of quarterly conversations focused on the challenges and rewards of caring for others. The In-Visible Inclusion ERG also contributes to the development of accessible Fannie Mae content, including accessibility labs to introduce employees to technology features that promote accessibility and disability etiquette training.
• Embracing practices and technologies to promote accessibility, including dedicated resource pages where employees can easily access information about Fannie Mae's workplace accommodations, technology accessibility, and productivity features.
• Inviting employees to join Courageous Conversations, safe space sessions where participants engage in candid dialogue on sensitive topics.
• Providing Fannie Mae employees the opportunity to voluntarily self-identify as a person with a disability to help the company better fulfill its commitment to a D&I workforce.
• Offering a robust menu of tools, training, and resources to promote a culture of inclusion and create a psychologically safe environment.
• Forming the Employee Inclusive Culture Council, a representative collective of more than 25 employee-volunteers committed to championing D&I and assisting the enterprise in cultivating a more inclusive workplace.
• Implementing a culture activation plan to refocus renters and homeowners as the primary beneficiary of Fannie Mae’s work while deepening the company’s focus on equitable housing.
• Partnering with external disability inclusion organizations, including Getting Hired, an organization dedicated to helping inclusive employers connect with and expand Fannie Mae's recruitment of professional individuals and veterans with disabilities; and Disability:IN, the leading nonprofit resource for business disability inclusion, which facilitates best and evolving practices among a network of 400 corporations.