Ferrari - A Company with People at its center
By the Editorial staff
Behind every Company’s success story are the men and women who work there every day. In Ferrari, the pursuit of excellence in its products goes hand in glove with the pursuit of a quality working life, the wellbeing and the professional development of the employees. In recent years, this has been the fulcrum of a growing number of specific, carefully crafted programmes.
Since 1997, the Company has developed the “Formula Uomo” initiative, with the intention of developing a high quality working life for the employees. Over the years, the project has become a pillar of the corporate culture, based on redesigning the working environment, enforcing a safety-first culture, enabling individual development, enhancing teamwork and building a community now comprising 53 different nationalities. The complex in Maranello, a state-of-the-art work environment, was designed to reinforce the synergistic relationship between work and results. With the needs of employees firmly in mind, manufacturing facilities are specifically created to combine carefully designed lighting systems, projected to maximize the amount of natural light, and several external and internal green areas. Thermal comfort throughout the factory is also a crucial requirement and special measures aimed at reducing the environmental impact and noise through the use of advanced technologies are also in place. As an example, the design of Machining Department is aimed at providing the workplace with maximum acoustic comfort thanks to noise reduction solutions. One of the most important programme is focused on education, targeting skills development as the prerequisite for successfully tackling future challenges. Last year, the Prancing Horse achieved a record of over 57,600 hours of training, an increase of 12% on 2018. The educational options on offer also grew in parallel due to the partnership with Harvard Business School, which has made one of the most advanced online learning platforms in the world available to the employees. Among all training initiatives, Ferrari is very proud of “Scuola dei mestieri”, started in 2009. It is a unique in-house technical training project which increases the professionalism of junior talents and motivates senior employees, recognizing their competencies by asking them to become Maestri and pass on Ferrari’s unique heritage to the next generation. The initiative combines different didactic methodologies, including on the job sessions and in-classroom training, both focused on the consolidation of competencies and skills, with a particular focus on innovation.
Another area of Ferrari excellence is its wellbeing and welfare programme for employees and their families. This spans a series of services and opportunities ranging from study grants to recreational activities and free medical visits as part of “Formula Benessere”. As part of its benefits, preventative healthcare is provided to all employees and their children. Medical specialists are available for consultation in areas such as ophthalmic, cardiology, osteopathy and dermatology, among others. A free annual check-up focusing on general health and fitness is also provided to managers and children of all employees aged 5 toIn 2019 the program was extended with “Formula Benessere Donna” specifically designed for women. In the course of the year, Ferrari employees and their children availed themselves of over 4,500 medical and specialist check-ups.
On this front it is worth mentioning the efforts provided by Ferrari against the Covid-19. The Company’s priority in this health crisis has been to safeguard the health and wellbeing of all Ferrari employees while assuring to the extent possible its responsibilities towards business partners, clients and all other stakeholders. For this reason Ferrari presented the project “Back on Track”, the fruit of a partnership with a pool of virologists and experts, which aimed to provide a safe working environment from the resumption of the company’s productive activities. Ferrari has also joined the collective fight against the pandemic through several solidarity projects. The Company has launched a fundraising among some of its clients, matching all of their donations, in favor of the medical staff and the health system of Ferrari’s surrounding communities. Other initiatives in the local community include the purchasing of equipment for local hospitals, emergency medical service vehicles, IT equipment for schools and essential goods for struggling families coping with the emergency situation.
The overall funds donated for these specific local initiatives were generated thanks to the Chairman, the CEO and Board of Directors pledging their full compensation from April to the end of the year, with the Senior Management Team donating 25% of their salaries for the same period. These contributions add to respirator valves and fittings for protective masks produced by the Company at its Maranello plant and donated to Italian hospitals. Scuderia Ferrari Mission Winnow and the IIT have also projected FI5, a pulmonary ventilator useful in emergencies such as the COVID-19 pandemic.
Ferrari’s attention to the promotion of health and safety in the work environment goes well beyond the pandemic. The Prancing Horse continues to make significant investments in safety at work: improvements in the existing structures and specific training have allowed to achieve significant results.
Mandatory health and safety training is provided to all new hires during the second day of the induction program, while periodic sessions are developed for all employees.
To foster a sense of belonging among employees and their families and to offer concrete support to working parents with the demanding duties of childcare during school holidays, it has launched the program “Formula Estate Junior”. This initiative consist of a free camp for employees’ children, with various programs including sports, outdoor activities, excursions and workshops. The program has a duration of 11 weeks and allows children to enjoy an exciting experience with a didactic purpose. Education is also the focus of a series of different initiatives that provide scholarships to talented junior high, high school and university students. In 2019, the scholarship program, named after the founder “Enzo Ferrari”, was awarded to 56 talented students. Moreover, in 2019 almost 600 employees were reimbursed for the cost of their children’s textbooks.
As a result also of a working environment putting people first, Ferrari received in excess of 45,000 applications during last year, including specific as well as spontaneous applications from around the world for engineering, technical, marketing and financial positions. Along with the need to hire, develop and retain talents, all these initiatives prove that the management of human capital is a critical resource to achieve the best possible results, and that the quality of the famous luxury sport cars cannot be separated from the lives of the people working in Ferrari.