At Lavazza, flexibility is an aspect we have been working on for some time and in many ways.
It was still in 2017 when the first Smart Working initiatives took place at its management center in Turin. Then, in 2018, the first pilot program was launched involving 30% of head office employees. “Without dwelling too much on the importance it had during the pandemic to be already familiar with the management of remote work – he underlined Gianmarco FissoreLabor Law & Industrial Relations Manager of Lavazza, on the occasion of the conference of the Smart Working Observatory of the Polytechnic of Milan – today our policy provides for 10 days per month, which can also be used cumulatively and independently by each employee”.
Who is who
Gianmarco Fissore
Director of Labor Law & Labor Relations, Lavazza Group
Empowering employees: Lavazza started here
By giving trust and making people responsible, this is what the Group that markets its entire coffee brand has done: “Responsibility towards targets but also towards superiors, the team and colleagues, with the aim of total coordination – said Fissor -. Smart Working in Lavazza has no specific limitations, neither in time (except those defined by law), nor in places. Our employees can work from anywhere, of course adhering to the security measures we communicate annually through our information. We started with the head office employees and then extended this model to other locations, especially the employees of the production plants in Italy, who can work from home 1 or 2 days a week. We have recently proposed a hybrid working policy in all our overseas branches, providing guidelines to adapt this way to their national reality.”
Lavazza’s Short Fridays
With the signing of the new supplementary contract for the headquarters, valid from 2023 to 2025, the Group took another step forward on the road to flexibility, establishing the so-called “little Fridays”. “For 15 Fridays between May and September, workers can reduce their working hours from the standard 8 hours to 5 hours, which they can still decide to do in Smart Work mode. We did this by making use of the licenses provided for by the national collective agreement of the food industry. At the same time, we have maintained the flexibility of hours that we already had, which allows you to start work whenever you want at 08:00-09:30.”
And regarding the use of national contract permits, the Administrator wished to underline that “it is clear that it created savings, a cost avoided in cases where the permits were not used. However, this cost was immediately avoided are reinvested in welfare initiatives. For example, we have expanded our health coverage, launched new initiatives to protect the health of our employees, and funded the Time to Care project, which helps employees manage their personal lives.
Flexibility also means “approved licenses”
Another part of the strategy adopted by Lavazza is the establishment of “approved licences”. “These are authorizations provided in response to certain needs that we believe are increasingly important to our employees. In particular, we have established 16 hours of paid leave for accompanying family members to medical appointments. This initiative was highly appreciated by the caregivers. In addition, it is possible to take advantage of four hours for veterinary visits for pets and, very importantly, we have added 5 days of mandatory company-paid paternity, in addition to the 10 hours required by law,” Fissore reiterated.
A strategy that people like…and that benefits business
“The impact of these initiatives on the business is very positive. We haven’t done any quantitative measurements, we don’t have any KPI measurements, but we’ve distributed a lot of qualitative surveys among our employees. For example, our business center’s performance bonus trend has been steadily increasing over the past few years, even after the introduction of these new tools. And, still on the topic of flexibility, for us it is not only about hours but also about finances. Here’s why our premium can be converted into welfare services and a part is provided through complimentary tickets, so fringe benefits.”
But Lavazza does not stop here, because the current situation is not an arrival point for the Group, but a starting point.
“We are thinking about the new frontiers of flexibility and our next goals are very clear. First of all, integrate Little Fridays into our management center supplemental contract term for the next two years. We are also thinking about increasing the number of Smart Working days, because we have noticed that it is very useful for managing some personal situations of our employees, such as those who have small children or those who have relatives to take care of. We are also seriously considering the revision of our premises, our offices, the Nuvola management center in Turin, a space already designed as innovative and conducive to cross-functional and teamwork. An evolution could be office sharing and an app to reserve the workstation, precisely to encourage Smart Working that also starts from the office and not necessarily from the workers’ homes,” Fissore concluded.