THE VIEW FROM… THE FAMILY BOARD
Wednesday 08 July 2020
UniCredit’s Family Board explains the actions taken by UniCredit to support our colleagues’ personal and professional needs, and to facilitate the transition towards Phase 2 and our new ways of working
What is the Family Board? And why was it established?
The Family Board is a group of around 10 UniCredit employees with different personal and professional backgrounds. It was formed in April to ensure the bank has a solid understanding of individual and family needs stemming from the Covid-19 crisis and identify possible solutions.
When the crisis hit, we faced unprecedented challenges. We were quick to react and change our routines to keep UniCredit “open for business”, whilst always protecting the health and safety of our customers and colleagues. However, we also had to deal with new personal and family needs, so in April we formed a dedicated team that could focus on how we best give families the support they need.
How has the crisis affected people’s lives?
The Covid-19 emergency has disrupted our daily routines but has also showed us that we are strong. Everyone in our Group has had to learn how to carry out work tasks in a new context, while taking care of other needs at home such as educating children or caring for elderly relatives.
It’s not been easy for many of our colleagues and it’s required us to change the way we work and communicate with colleagues and customers.
How did the Family Board support colleagues during the transition towards Phase 2?
First of all we had to identify their most pressing issues. We launched a survey aimed at understanding how people at UniCredit were facing the crisis and balancing their professional and personal lives.
We received more than 3,700 responses. The results we received were very informative and told us that colleagues’ main concerns regarded flexibility, respect for formal working hours, the management of remote teams, support for homeschooling, and work-life balance.
What concrete actions did the Family Board take to help colleagues across the Group?
We prioritised our tasks according to input from our colleagues and organised our next steps into a “Family Board Action Plan”. We are implementing more flexible smart working solutions that will allow employees to work from anywhere, when they work remotely.
We have also shared a new Etiquette focused on respecting work-life balance and being more effective when leading remote teams.
There’s more to do. We are currently looking to provide online resources to help with homeschooling, support for elderly family members and children with learning difficulties. We will also support individual needs through dedicated support programmes and ad hoc communities for parents, caregivers and other people particularly affected by the current situation, so they can share and discuss personal experiences
with each other. Lastly, we are defining new initiatives to promote psycho-physical wellbeing, such as phone line support and other tools as videos and dedicated webinars.
Finally, is there a message that the Family Board wants to share with all the colleagues?
Thanks to our responsiveness and flexibility, we rose to the unprecedented challenges posed by the pandemic and showed our ability to adapt to a continuously changing world.
In this new scenario, we will keep encouraging our colleagues to share suggestions and feedback to shape our workplace of the future. The Family Board will strive to support UniCredit’s people and to balance their needs both at home and at work. Together, we will continue to… Do the right thing!