AT SANOFI WE TRAIN EMOTIONAL AGILITY

By the editorial staff

One of Sanof Italia’s most recent training projects focuses on emotional intelligence and agility: ‘In the last year and a half, the theme of recogni tion, management and enhancement of feelingsin the workplace has been revealed in all its centrality,’ says Daniela Fostera, Country-People Development Head at Sanof Italy. [This] ‘is a very sensitive issue that, too often in the past, was ignored by companies because it was considered secondary, while during the pandemic, we all experienced first-hand how strong feelings (fear and anger, above all) have impacted our daily lives and relationships with colleagues and employees.’

Certainly, in 2021, fear has been one of the primary feelings and the one that has most affected the lives of Sanof Italia employees; for this reason, for over a year now, the company has been working to support the entire workforce, which, due to the anti-Covid provisions, has had to accelerate and amplify the transition to extended smart working and which has, inevitably, signifcantly blurred the boundaries between personal and professional lives.
‘This delicate phase of profound change has to do with feelings,’ continues Fostera, ‘and it was important for us to take care of them right from the start: through dedicated webinars we started to support people, even remotely. We started working on the theme of feelings with the project Un tempo inaudito (inaudito means ‘unheard of’ in Italian, ed.). Unheard of because we lived in a different era now and that had to be addressed with different projects.’

This is a very sensitive issue which, all too often in
the past, has been ignored by companies.
During the pandemic, we all experienced frsthand how strong feelings (fear and anger,
above all) impacted on our daily lives and our
relationships with our colleagues and co-workers

This year, Sanof Italia has decided to invest further in the theme of feelings, with a specifc objective: helping managers
to recognise and manage their feelings, both for their personal growth and to improve relations with employees. ‘Acquiring skills related to emotional intelligence and agility allows us, as a company,’ says Fostera, ‘to boost our talent attractiveness, empowerment and our employees’ performance.’

The course, which is run with a scientifc partner involvingcoaches, psychologists and counsellors who are experts in
neurobiology, intelligence and emotional agility, is delivered in 2 modules:

• a theoretical part delivered via webinar;
• and virtual classrooms.

The practical part is transformed into a real workout in which managers practice and experiment with what they have learned previously. ‘The structuring of these 2 modules allows us to arrive at a more effective and efficient result, because the theoretical part is immediately translated into practice and made concrete,’ specifes Fostera.

Participation in the course proposed by Sanof, which is on a voluntary basis, has already been exceeded by 50%: 160 of 300 managers have participated in the programme. The course is open and free: each manager can sign up for the webinar or virtual classroom (this one has a limited number of participants) of their interest. The topics focus on emotional awareness, self-management and social awareness.
‘These issues are linked to our D&I policy,’ continues Fostera, ‘to the focus on and enhancement of cultural differences, to everyone’s experiences and, also, to different age groups: feelings have a genesis that is linked to each individual’s experience, therefore to their past and present. In this process, it is necessary to consider the age and life stage of a manager who may be at the beginning of their professional career, compared to another manager with years of experience, who is a leader in the organisation: each person experiences, depending on their age, certain types of feelings that they will regulate and manage differently depending on their experience.'

The subject of emotion regulation is absolutely different depending on the stage of life we are going through, and this
aspect is dealt with both during the webinars and in the virtual classrooms (which include participants of all ages, between 30 and 60). ‘This is another reason the company is very interested in this course,’ concludes Fostera, ‘because it involves our being and acting as professionals: I recognise the feeling, I verbalise it, I distance myself from it and then I manage it. It is essential to learn to process the deepest parts of oneself in order to achieve greater awareness and better management of one’s emotional flow. At every age and in every phase of life.'