Our presence in more than 30 countries across five continents encourages the sharing of positive experiences between one context and another, and this also occurred in this case. The successful implementation of smart working in Italy was gradually replicated in Spain, Greece, Romania, Russia, the United States and Latin America.
The vision of our CEO and our Chair
“We have to keep the good habits that we have acquired: being more efficient, more direct, listening more, and making the best use of the tools for sharing”
“These events have shown our extraordinary resilience, vision and strategy”
People, our energy
“The main thing we have learnt is to stop and think, setting aside the stress of continuous transfers from one place to another and the sacrifices made in the name of hypermobility. This would suggest that the resources deployed should be used also to improve people’s lives, facilitating a more sustainable lifestyle,” explained Francesca Di Carlo, the Enel Group’s Head of People and Organization.
“An aspect of this period that I have greatly appreciated, the sense of responsibility each one of us has”
Flexibility is a key concept in smart working, both in terms of working hours and the organisation of one’s tasks. Greater choice means greater responsibility: the focus is on the project to complete or the goal to achieve rather than respecting specific working hours. The employee has the task of organising his or her time and consequently the responsibility to complete the task. This awareness did not disappear with the return to normality and is an opportunity worth taking in the future.
“We place great value on maintaining our colleagues’ motivation, peace of mind and tranquillity”
Communication and resilience
In moments like these, managing communications – be they external or internal – is even more important for positioning the company in terms of resilience and sustainability.
Our Group has not lacked challenges in this area - creativity, sharing and brainstorming have been our response to the health emergency.
Thanks to digital tools, we have found the key to reducing the distance between us through a model of working in a more structured way, one that is clearer, planned in greater detail, and that places people at the centre.
“This period has revealed the real Enel: our people working even more passionately and feeling the strength of their bond with the company”
Quality of life, values and sustainability
The advantages of smart working are numerous, beginning with improving the quality of life, thanks to enabling a better balance between work and private life.
“We should aim to improve people’s quality of life but also their quality of work.”
Cutting the number of people commuting to work reduces traffic, pollution and greenhouse gas emissions: the result is a clear boost to sustainability, especially in cities. There are also notable savings in terms of time. All of these benefits are appreciated by the majority of people, as confirmed by an internal Enel survey: the results revealed that those employees involved were particularly satisfied.
“There is a benefit, also in terms of sustainability that we can provide to the big cities in which we operate”
Greater personal responsibility also encourages the perception of feeling part of a shared project. Consequently, productivity also rises: this was confirmed by the data from the Polytechnic University of Milan’s Smart Working Observatory, which calculated an increase in productivity of 15%.
Our Group did not choose smart working as an isolated tool, but as part of a broader strategy to help our employees during an exceptional situation. We also considered those who work on site, launching the social solidarity initiative “Banca delle ferie” (The leave bank): thanks to an agreement with the unions, all employees were able to donate one or more of their leave days to their colleagues who are unable to perform their tasks remotely.
Digitalised, therefore, enabled
For many companies, the sudden introduction of smart working for 37 thousand people would not have been easy. In our Group it was more straightforward because years ago we had set out on an important journey of digitalisation for the IT innovations that we had already adopted.
“This new way of working remotely is a journey of collaboration, growth and dialogue, made possible by digitalisation”
A decisive stage in this journey was the achievement of “full cloud” in 2019: we were the world’s first utility to have fully (100%) adopted the use of IT services installed on the computers of a specialised provider. This efficient operational model has led to a technological and cultural revolution.
Watch our managers talking about remote working
“The important thing is that we do the tasks that we are assigned with passion: if we like things and we do them well, then we create a virtuous cycle”
“Remote working needs to be useful to both the company and its employees because it helps us use the time available in the best possible way”
“We have to take all-round care of the people who work with us. It’s impossible not to feel this responsibility”
“I believe that companies must undergo a process of constant renewal, using all the available tools, in order to embrace a new way of working.”
“In team sports you learn that you are the team: without the team you're nobody”
“We need to take this capacity for empathy home with us, as a reminder of this moment of extreme solidarity that we have experienced”
“The real lesson that we've learnt is that nobody is completely independent: we are all interconnected”