How work will change in Intesa Sanpaolo
What the new organizational model provides for Intesa Sanpaolo employees. The deepening of Emanuela Rossi
Crucial month for the bank contract, which expired at the end of 2022 and was extended to 30 April next. Moreover, with negotiations underway, Intesa Sanpaolo was revoked by the union from the ABI which – with 74,000 employees – is the leading private employer in Italy and has a third of all active banks in our country. Precisely at the beginning of 2023, the banking group led by the managing director Carlo Messina was the architect of a revolution in the world of credit with the new organizational model whose main innovations are the 4-day work week and the possibility of doing 120 days the year of smart working.
THE NEW ORGANIZATIONAL MODEL
The new model that Intesa Sanpaolo is implementing on an experimental basis for employees working in Italy "meets the need to reconcile the professional and working life balance of its people – the credit group explained in a note – and demonstrates attention to their well-being, through innovative solutions to working methods with the aim of making the bank even more agile and dynamic, at the service of a more demanding clientele”.
Among the main innovations, the possibility of flexible working up to 120 days a year, without monthly limits and taking advantage of a meal voucher allowance of 3 euros per day, to take into account the expenses incurred working from home, and the short week 4 days of 9 working hours with equal pay, on a voluntary basis, with no fixed day obligation and compatibly with the bank's technical, organizational and production requirements. These are "improving methods compared to the current ones" and which the people who work in Intesa Sanpaolo will be able to access individually. An experimentation period has also been launched in around 200 branches.
As the bank itself points out, "dealing with the trade union organisations, while taking place in a profitable and constructive manner, did not find a consensus on the overall content, but Intesa Sanpaolo, confirming its attention to the people of the group, will continue to propose the better solutions for those who work in the leading Italian bank” and, in fact, has already introduced these innovations.
"The decision – highlighted the bank in a press release – confirms the importance of continuously enhancing the people of the Group and their growth and satisfaction, also thanks to the relationship of trust and the improvement of professional experience, intervening on the organization of work with useful tools to continue to favor the reconciliation of private needs with corporate ones, the enhancement of corporate welfare, productivity, inclusion, social relationships between colleagues".
Furthermore, Intesa Sanpaolo "wants to cope with the changes taking place in the banking and financial sector by proposing cutting-edge solutions and tools, within the regulatory framework, in terms of work organization, in line with its constant commitment to the well-being and inclusion which places the Group at the top of the main international indexes. Placing the development of the Bank's professionalism at the center in a context of attention to needs and expectations is a key element for the implementation of the 2022-2025 Business Plan".
THE CLOSURE OF THE UNIONS
As was said, the group was unable to reach an agreement with the trade union organizations. In a joint note, the unions recently underlined that the institute was not available to "extend Smart Working and 4×9, not even with the necessary modulations, to all colleagues in the branches", to "identify technical tools that allow a real disconnection at the end of one's working hours", to "increase the value of the meal voucher for everyone", to "recognize the whole meal voucher for Smart Working days" as well as "compensations for energy and connection” and “a contribution towards setting up the workplace”.
"Despite five months of negotiations and some progress – wrote Fabi, First, Fisac, Uilca and Unisin – these closures, incomprehensible given the more than positive trend and organization of the Bank, did not allow for the signing of an agreement". According to the five acronyms, Intesa Sanpaolo "wanted to keep total discretion in the concessions of smart working and the 4×9 week and in any case declared its intention to continue unilaterally with the implementation of the new work organization".
WHAT THE INTESA SANPAOLO BUSINESS PLAN 2022-2025 PROVIDES FOR PERSONNEL
The group speaks quite extensively of initiatives for employees in the 2022-2025 Business Plan. In particular, around 4,600 newly hired people and around 8,000 retrained/reconverted according to this breakdown are expected in the period: around 2,600 at the Digital Branch, 4,000 at technology (digital, data and analytics), 3,500 at priority initiatives (e.g. PNRR, growth 10 of activities, risk profile reduction) and 2,500 to other (e.g. ESG / Impact Banking, control functions, turnover).
Starting from the concept – expressed in the plan – that "the people of the group are the most important resource" to a large-scale application of the "Next way of working" model (hybrid i.e. physical/remote) ensuring maximum flexibility and renewing IT equipment and the layout of the workplaces, a bit what has been being done experimentally since January. Then there is a list of "large-scale initiatives for the well-being and safety of people (e.g. new office spaces, gyms, healthy eating, safety on business trips)" and "new incentive plans (even long-term) to promote individual entrepreneurship”.
Ca' de Sass then identifies an "innovative strategy for talents" with the "Leader of the future" program aimed at approximately 1,000 talents and key people at group level and aims at strengthening the international presence in key markets with distinctive skills and digital world with the insourcing of key competencies.
And again: attention to "promoting an environment that is inclusive and open to diversity with dedicated initiatives and a focus on gender equal opportunities", to implement a "retraining/reconversion program suited to people's needs to allocate excess capacity to the priorities of the Business Plan" and to create "a national training champion, making use of Intesa Sanpaolo's infrastructure for innovative training to position itself as the unifying entity of the best Italian operators in the sector, offering Group people excellent training in critical skills for digital transition (e.g. cybersecurity, digital data, cloud) and ecological (e.g. sustainability, circular economy), investing in the most modern learning technologies (e.g. Artificial Intelligence) providing an increasingly effective training experience".
THE REVOCATION OF THE DELEGATION TO THE ABI
In February, Intesa Sanpaolo revoked the "mandate for trade union representation to the ABI to autonomously manage its participation in the bargaining". However, the banking group led by Messina specified that it will continue "to participate – on a permanent invitation agreed with Abi – in the future activities of the Trade Union and Labor Committee aimed at preparing and negotiating the renewal of the national collective labor agreement in the banking sector".
From now on, therefore, there will be three social parties sitting at the negotiating table: the Committee for trade union and labor affairs of the ABI (Casl), the trade unions and Intesa Sanpaolo, the group headed by the administrator Carlo Messina .
THE ASSURANCES OF MESSINA AND GROS-PIETRO
Meanwhile, the leaders of the group throw water on the fire and send signals of relaxation. In recent days, Messina replied to the affirmations of the secretary general Fabi, Lando Maria Sileoni, that the negotiations for the renewal of the national credit agreement will be "tears and blood": "But for heaven's sake. It is clear that attention is sought through very strong messages, but what must be maintained is absolute serenity”. As reported by the agencies, on the sidelines of a Cariplo Foundation conference, the Roman top manager highlighted that “the will on the part of the companies and in particular of Intesa is to do the best for the people who work in the bank. Starting from these assumptions, it is clear that the agreements are made in the best possible way and with all the protections and guarantees established. It has never happened otherwise."
Days later, however, the president, Gian Maria Gros-Pietro, was lapidary, who, to the "prophecy" of Sileoni himself about a return of the institution to unitary bargaining, replied curtly: "I have great esteem for Sileoni". Which, moreover, is an employee of Intesa Sanpaolo.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/economia/intesa-sanpaolo-nuovo-modello-organizzazione-dipendenti/ on Mon, 10 Apr 2023 07:10:17 +0000.