HR Leader - Industrial Manufacturing, Tyres (Italy)

Which measures did your organization take from an HR perspective to keep operating during the lockdown?

  • Our business and HR processes already operate with Agile methodologies, so we only halted production and logistics operations. The other departments continued to work from home.
  • We have made heavy investments in IT infrastructure so have the advantange of a good level in “digitalization”.
  • Internal communication on daily basis with operating and positive information.

What particular challenges has the company faced through Covid-19? Any challenges specific to the Covid situation in Italy?

  • In Italy we did not have the time to monitor the progression of the pandemic in neighbouring countries – we had to organize an immediate shutdown. This obviously meant a high level of stress in our workforce. We have concentrated our efforts on constant – daily - internal communication with positive information.

What impact has the Covid-19 crisis had on your Talent Acquisition (TA) planning in the last months (hiring freeze, slowdown, only replacements...?)

  • Perhaps surprisingly, not a great deal until now; at the beginning of June we hired a Mechanical Designer selected during the lockdown time.

What will be the impact of the Corona virus on your Talent strategy over the next 12 months?

  • We are now facing some problems in our market so I presume that we will move into a hiring freeze.

What measures are in place for the return to work (or to the office)?

  • We are following a strict set of guidelines mandated by the government, which include all the widely known safeguarding measures. We are close to having 100% of the workforce back in the office.
  • We have a working group comprising HSE, Unions and HR which meets weekly to discuss developments and concerns in the workforce.

How do you view the next 6-12 months from an HR / TA perspective?

  • Emerging from the crisis, I think that our task in HR will be 100% devoted to employee relations, in order to manage the high stress levels across all departments.
  • The crisis has increased the focus on HR as a problem-solver partner to the business and the workforce.

Will Covid-19 make any lasting changes at Your organization to the way people work, or the way they are allowed to work? (eg more teleworking, less/more travel, more reliance on IT tools, other...)

  • Not really; our agile working principles mean that outside of production and logistics, most staff already have the flexibility to work where they wish.