THE VOICE, LISTENING, DIALOGUE - Plurality is the key to the cultural richness of a community. Valuing the many souls at Angelini Pharma

L. Di Giandomenico, B. N. De Gol

One of the main communication trends of 2021 is the voice, with even greater growth than has been recorded in recent years. Witness the explosion of podcasts as a communication tool, which have increased in value by 108% compared to 2019, with approximately 1.8 million tracks on Spotify in 2020. The natural counterpoint of the voice is listening: without listening, the voice would remain background noise. Voices and listening are the functional foundations of dialogue, and dialogue is the basis for the construction of a shared language, the founding element of a community in which to recognise oneself. The voice, listening, dialogue: these are three of the elements with which at Angelini Pharma we want to build our community of people. An inclusive community, with a minimum common denominator: the sharing of values, the ground on which to build the concrete development of each of our employees.

The voice. With Covid-19, communication has moved almost completely online, teaching us that we can no longer separate brands from people: everyone has an active role to play in this historical moment as citizens of the same society. Everything is public again. We are all on the same stage, we all have a voice that others want to hear.

Listening. At Angelini Pharma we are convinced that listening to our people offers us the opportunity to embrace different perspectives and to value everyone's contributions, not only by promoting inclusion, but by nurturing our ability to be an innovative company. For us it is essential that every person in our company can feel the confidence necessary to affirm their voice, feel they are an integral part of a community and share their ideas. With the help of Glint, the global provider of people engagement solutions, last summer we carried out an analysis of the internal climate in all the countries where Angelini Pharma is present, to collect impressions, suggestions and the needs of Angeliners and investigate multiple aspects of corporate life. Our goal is to create an environment that guarantees true, honest and non-superficial acceptance of all people, drawing on diversity.

Dialogue. Listening to the needs of our people and engaging in dialogue with our social partners were the basis of the supplementary trade union agreements signed last December. The agreements reflect the inclusive and meritocratic approach that Angelini Pharma promotes, its desire for continuous improvement and to foster decision-making agility, with the aim of improving the work-life balance of employees, above all by guaranteeing equal opportunities and the protection of all forms of diversity.

Among the policies to support families, Angelini Pharma guarantees the extension of up to 8 months of parental leave (formerly optional maternity leave) by paying 30% of the salary, which for the first 6 months is paid by INPS. In addition, our company provides an additional 8 hours of leave for settling pre-school-aged children in nurseries and for caring for people aged over 70, as well as an additional day of leave with respect to the provisions of the legislation for new fathers. The main innovation to support families included in the agreements concerns civil unions: in the event of the birth or adoption of a child, workers can in fact take advantage of paid parental leave for up to eight consecutive days, to be used continuously within the first month of a newborn baby’s life or from the moment an adopted child joins the family. Angelini Pharma has also joined Parks - Liberi e Uguali, and is currently drafting a global D&I policy to outline specific local and international paths and increasingly affirm its vision of diversity as an engine of innovation and great social and professional value. A further step in our commitment to Diversity and Inclusion (D&I), which sees the protection of family rights – regardless of sex, gender and sexual orientation – and gender balance as its cornerstones. The latter has long been a reality at Angelini Pharma. Over 48% of the company is made up of women, a percentage that in the Research & Development area reaches up to 75%. Globally, over 40% of management positions (first and second line) are filled by women; in the position of Global Chief Medical Officer, for example, we find Dr Agnese Cattaneo. In Italy, a country that contributes 50% of the company's global turnover, the Country Manager is Rosita Calabrese, a young woman with over 20 years of experience in the pharmaceutical sector in managerial roles at the national and international level. With the aim of increasingly improving the level of inclusiveness and asserting real gender equity in the corporate environment, Angelini Pharma is adopting an increasingly data-driven approach to D&I issues as well. In particular, the implementation of analytical tools to identify and monitor key KPIs in terms of gender representation, differentiated by corporate function and by country, provides a comprehensive overview of the segmentation of the population. This allows us to mitigate any disparities in the selection of personnel and in choices regarding professional growth within the company. A first, very important positive effect was to be able to erase the gender pay gap, which still existed between Italian colleagues, who are now in all regards equally represented and paid.

Inclusion, equal rights, opportunities. Listening, voices, dialogue. The policies we are implementing for our people are intended to make room for a mosaic of voices, all different from each other. Because only the presence and amplification of so many different voices can enrich our community’s dialogue community, and therefore that of our company as a whole.