Message from Giancarlo Campri, Hera Group Director of Personnel and Organization

At Hera, our mission is to enhance the value of our employees through well-defined procedures for participation and involvement. This approach has been fundamental in the past in supporting the Group’s creation, and today it is essential to the achievement of the efficiency required to a Company that aims to be competitive in all respects.

We have pursued participation through two main initiatives: engagement with labour representatives and direct employee participation, by way of agreements (including preventive agreements) through which the Company has successfully managed over time critical merger processes requiring the entire organization’s shared commitment to the integration of newly acquired operations.

Training represents the core aspect of the professional development of our personnel. It is a tool for enhancing Hera’s value because it is through employee training that we disseminate the Company’s key values and objectives. In our model, training activities focus on six themes:

In terms of resources invested, Hera has made a significant commitment to the value enhancement and continuous development of its human resources. In 2017, some 97% of the Company’s personnel were involved in at least one training initiative. Roughly 52% of the activities were carried out by internal instructors, including with the application of the Vocational School model.

The new Development Process aims to enhance the value of our personnel and to optimize the development initiatives and the resources dedicated to the management and growth of human capital. Overall, the process involves around 5,000 individuals who are office workers, office managers, middle managers, and executives.

The objectives are:

• to evaluate each employee’s strengths and areas for improvement with respect to the position covered;
• to make clear the expectations of each employee in terms of results and conduct;
• to identify and to implement more specific (and, therefore, more effective) actions for the professional and managerial development of every individual who works for the Hera Group.

In addition, every two years, we conduct an internal climate survey.  This is a key listening initiative in which employees are directly involved through their assessments about their role at Hera, their immediate superiors, the workplace, and the corporate culture.

The survey’s main objectives are to identify:

• the shifts with respect to the precedent survey, evaluating the effectiveness of the actions implemented in the previous two years, within the sphere of the various business units;
• the most effective areas of intervention to facilitate the improvement of the internal climate in relation to the achievement of the business objectives;
• the changes and trends through the 15 years of surveys already conducted.

Hera has also structured a Group Welfare Program replete with initiatives and services uniquely tailored to meet the needs of workers and to improve the socio-economic well-being of both the employees and their families.

In addition, Hera has set up a Participatory System on an experimental basis, with the involvement of employees in Joint Working Groups, and the objective of increasing motivation and actively involving Company’s personnel in innovation processes. The aim of this system is to generate improvements in both efficiency and quality of life and work. The Participation Committee is coordinating, monitoring, and evaluating the entire experimental process to assure the initiative’s maximum effectiveness.