People’s wellbeing

Poste Italiane pays great attention to ways of supporting the parental role, adopting supportive actions and providing broader protections than those provided for by law.
To this end, it has adopted a policy dedicated to supporting mothers and fathers. In particular, Poste recognises 100% pay for all months of absence from work during maternity and alternative paternity leave, compared to the 80% provided for by law.
In addition, Poste Italiane provides mothers and fathers who take parental leave with a more favourable financial treatment e.g. for the time taken up to the child’s sixth year of age, 80% of pay for two months instead of the 30% provided for by law. If a parent taking breastfeeding leave needs to move closer to their municipality of residence during the child's first year of life, they may apply for it, subject to certain requirements. In addition, medically assisted-procreation paths are supported by granting employees specific recuperation leave. 
 
To support parenthood, information campaigns are carried out to inform employees about new laws on maternity and paternity protection.
 
Poste's focus on promoting active parenthood finds a natural evolution in the involvement and presence of fathers within the family through measures and initiatives capable of fostering culturally-ready contexts to reconcile these evolutionary and social needs.
The Company recognises the importance of shared parenting as an opportunity to foster the spread of a broader culture oriented towards collaboration, also on caregiver issues — the development of a fair career path also passes through the rebalancing and equal distribution of family responsibilities.
 
To strengthen the initiatives supporting active parenthood and parenting, there is a master training programme available through an online platform aimed at discovering the generative abilities related to the experience of parenthood to train the soft skills acquired and make them available to the organisation. The programme is aimed at parents (mothers and fathers) of children and teenagers up to the age of 18, with the aim of raising awareness of the changes and resources activated when caring for and nurturing a child.
 
A company day care service is available at the Rome and Bologna locations. The service is provided for the children and grandchildren of Group employees and for a portion of users from municipal and third-party organisations. The service is offered to over 100 families with children aged 3 to 36 months. For employees, the Company pays 55% of the monthly cost. The aim is to guarantee employees a flexible educational service whose founding dimensions are attention to the values of eco-sustainability, interculturalism (bilingualism), inclusion and the educational alliance with families to foster a common dialogue through innovative modes of communication. 
 
Seminar programmes to support parenting, themed webinars extended to all employees, and a counselling service as a listening and reflection space offered to parents to explore any difficulties related to their children's developmental processes and transitions are carried out.
 
Poste Italiane also offers school and career guidance courses involving the children of employees, together with students from schools throughout the country, with the aim of offering young people opportunities for growth through contact between the worlds of school and business.
 
Summer holidays are planned for our employees' children and siblings with disabilities of employees, supported entirely by Poste Italiane, offering children moments of entertainment and individual assistance with dedicated operators, providing an experience of socialisation and full integration, as well as enabling families to benefit from concrete help in their daily care needs.

Employees can benefit from the cover provided by the supplementary health fund. Two solutions are available: a Basic Package, the burden of which is fully borne by Poste Italiane, and a Plus Package with a contribution from the employee. For both options, assistance can be extended to the family with the payment of a contribution by the worker. For healthcare services, it is possible to use one's own doctors/facilities or a network of affiliated healthcare facilities. With regard to health care, for personnel in the executive category, the company contributes to the FASI Health Fund and other supplementary funds in order to recognise additional benefits than those provided by the National Health Service.
 
With regard to supplementary pensions, Poste contributes to the financing of Fondoposte for non-executive personnel and to the supplementary pension fund PREVINDAI for executive personnel, in order to provide supplementary pension benefits to the mandatory pension scheme.
 
Poste Italiane also intervenes with initiatives aimed at fostering well-being and the development of a social conscience in young people by organising a series of meetings aimed at employees and their families on issues related to ethics and healthy lifestyles with content proposed from an intergenerational perspective.
 
The Poste Centro Medico was created as a centre of excellence dedicated to the care and prevention of Poste Italiane employees, their families and pensioners. The Poste Centro Medico has provided 11,000 health service contributions in the last two years.

Agile work is structurally regulated by the CCNL (National Collective Labour Agreement) and the operating procedures are defined by a trade union agreement that provides for a maximum number of days, differentiated according to the organisational structure to which the employee belongs and which can be increased based on specific personal and family situations requiring a greater commitment from the employee in terms of work-life balance.

Agile Work can be activated on a voluntary basis by signing an individual agreement that, in accordance with the law and the contract, regulates work performance.

Agile Work is also available to personnel who do not have duties that can be done remotely in the event that they have to participate, via e-learning, in specific training activities identified by the Company.

In response to the growing need for flexibility and work-life balance, the Company, when faced with specific personal or family needs of employees, encourages access to remote or part-time work. 

In 2023, the Company maintained flexible forms of work (smart working), as an alternative to the traditional way of working in a face-to-face setting, while still ensuring flexible work for vulnerable staff. 

The push to digitalise and offer develop initiatives remotely was intensive, including innovation in systems, the introduction of new tools and functions, including through the cloud, which is increasingly making possible processes which are simplified, digitalised and employee-centric.

With a view to promoting intercultural exchange, scholarships abroad are provided for deserving children of employees, with the cost entirely borne by Poste Italiane.
 
Within the framework of social welfare initiatives, aimed at making welfare services available to the community and fostering the growth of the social fabric, special attention is paid to developing the younger generations with the goal of contributing to their growth. A number of school, career and soft skills development initiatives are launched for the children of employees, as well as initiatives focused on the language of digital innovation to raise understanding of the evolution of identity on the Internet and to raise awareness of online sociality among young people. 
 
In cooperation with Consel-Consorzio Elis, the Company participated in the two-year School4Life 2.0 project to foster a structured link between school and business and to prevent school drop-outs. The initiative involved 133 schools, 15,000 students from all over Italy and over 10 other major Italian companies.
 
We are committed to creating opportunities for sport as a key tool to strengthening relationships. With this in mind, the Poste Italiane National Football Team was set up to promote the values of sport among all employees.

Consistent with previous years, the Lifeed initiative, originally launched in 2015 under the name “MAAM”, “Maternity As A Master”, continues. This initiative aims to support family reconciliation, with a particular focus on women’s participation in the world of work. The programme, which is accessible in digital format, aims to make the parenting experience a “master” in transversal skills, which are also essential for professional growth and considered particularly useful when returning to work. The aim is to provide a greater awareness of the changes and skills acquired through the experience of caring for a child.

The programme is aimed not only at new mothers and fathers but also more generally at parents of children up to the age of 18. During 2023, the programme achieved the participation of about 1,200 users, who had the opportunity to enhance the skills acquired during their parenting experience. Employees who join the initiative can take advantage of online self-coaching courses that help them achieve a work-life balance, experienced not as a conflict but as an opportunity. These are webinars for inspiration, reflection, skills training and sharing on issues related to work-life synergy, well-being and the development of transversal skills.

The MultiMe®Finder programme, a tool introduced in 2022 and offered by Lifeed in cooperation with the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University in Chicago, was expanded in 2023. This programme has been made accessible not only to parents, but to all employees who wish to improve their awareness and develop their personal and professional growth skills. The goal is to allow users to explore and discover their skills and roles in different life experiences, both personal and professional. In this way, the programme aims to increase awareness of the roles played in different experiences, enhancing one’s talents with greater flexibility in an inclusive perspective.

The Company has set itself the objective of contributing to the strengthening of measures and pathways aimed at promoting active parenthood, also as levers to combat the phenomenon of denatality and to encourage an increasingly balanced distribution of care burdens. This included 4 parenting support seminars for all employees, innovative and structured parental involvement programmes with a kick-off and 6 dedicated project knowledge webinars.

In addition, in 2023, Poste Italiane promoted the “Fiocco Giallo” (Yellow Ribbon) project, which, with the aim of offering concrete support to new parents and celebrating the arrival of a child, offers employees who become parents through birth, adoption or pre-adoptive fostering a box of quality products for baby care and hygiene.

Through the Support for Active Parenting Policy, already formalised since 2022, the Company has defined a clear framework for women before and after the maternity (or adoption) period. The Policy provides for support and development pathways aimed at the individual and organisational well-being of people and focuses on programmes to support the parental role and actions to support the status of women. The aim is to offer a concrete response to colleagues who need to reconcile family life through inclusive policies. With it, in fact, the Company outlines a people development and management strategy in line with the tools already in place and develops a modern parenting model aimed at supporting women, before and after the period of biological or adoptive motherhood. The Policy, in particular, envisaged the centrality of listening in order to correctly identify the person’s needs and individual requirements, and the identification and development of a customised accompaniment programme based on the professional profile of the person and their maternity and personal care needs. This programme is structured with development paths both before and after absence from work, the use of the aforementioned platforms to enhance the soft skills acquired through the parental role, as well as the possibility of participating in refresher and coaching programmes to facilitate, if necessary, return to work. In this way, the Group has introduced management and care processes that offer a concrete response to employees, enhancing inclusive policies and representing an investment in the future of the Company and families. Attention is also paid to the role of fathers and to the promotion of sharing care responsibilities for the strengthening of work-life conciliation mechanisms and of measures capable of promoting environments that are culturally ready to accommodate these needs. These initiatives are driven by increasingly innovative approaches and perspectives, which aim to improve the quality of life of employees and promote a sustainable and fair working environment.

With this in mind, the Policy provides for the definition of similar dedicated management paths for male personnel to:
 

• increase the number of male employees taking paternity leave;
• encourage the development of a culture oriented towards collaboration on care issues, because the inclusion and development of women’s careers also passes through the rebalancing of care requirements with a view to the equal distribution of family responsibilities.

The Group, in fact, recognises the importance of parenting for men as well, being aware that it represents a significant opportunity to improve skills such as empathy, listening, understanding of others, patience and communication, and offers free and systematic parenting support seminars for all staff on paediatric prevention and parental support in the developmental and relational journey with children.

The “Mums At Work” project is part of the actions outlined by the Support for Active Parenting Policy, an initiative aimed at providing corporate coaching programmes to support women during the period of return from maternity leave, in order to facilitate achieving a balance between private and professional life. In particular, new mothers receive support for approximately four months from internal company coaches who assist employees in reformulating and refocusing their goals and in reconciling new family needs with the return to their work duties in the company. By 2023, the project had successfully involved more than 70 new mothers, highlighting the positive impact of the initiative in the business context. The Company, in addition to guaranteeing compliance with the regulations in force as regards breastfeeding leave, grants parents who take breastfeeding leave the possibility of being assigned, until their child turns one, to the municipality of habitual residence or to a neighbouring municipality, within their own territorial structure. Employees are also entitled to recuperative hourly leave for medical services for medically assisted procreation (PMA), for a maximum of 24 hours per year, or full-day leave, for a maximum of 4 days per year. It is also recognised that it is possible to increase the number of weekly and monthly days on which work can be performed in Agile mode in the event of particular personal and family situations that entail a greater commitment on the part of employees in terms of work-life balance, as well as for pregnant workers, for whom the possibility of performing their entire service remotely until the beginning of maternity leave may be considered.

In the area of contractual welfare, the Poste Mondo Welfare programme was implemented for the fifth consecutive year, implementing the trade union agreement on the Results Bonus, which allows employees, on a voluntary basis, to convert all or part of their Results Bonus into welfare goods and services with specific social, educational, recreational and welfare purposes, accessing tax benefits linked to current legislation and additional company welfare credits for an ever greater appreciation of the opportunities linked to the programme and to support the increased purchasing power of employees and their families.

The launch of the initiative was preceded by a process of listening to colleagues to understand their individual and family needs for the development of services based on the prevailing needs. The 2023 programme achieved record results with participants tripling from last year to 28 thousand. The success of the 2023 campaign was characterised by an improvement in the employee experience with new solutions available on the platform to encourage an informed choice of participation, by a capillary and multi-channel internal communication plan, by training briefs addressed to staff to increase their knowledge of all the opportunities of the programme, and by information workshops involving all company structures to ensure maximum territorial proximity. In particular, the 2023 edition saw the preparation and active involvement of more than 500 dedicated ambassadors, who also disseminated the programme on the basis of their personal experience, giving continuity to the coaching of colleagues, together with promotional stands in the most staff-intensive organisational structures, as well as an expansion of the network of goods and services offered.

In addition, the opportunities arising from current tax legislation were exploited, especially with regard to employees with dependent children in the area of fringe benefits and reimbursement of bills.

All this led to a higher percentage of premium utilisation converted into welfare, averaging 88%, also higher than market trends and observers. This indicator attests to the social and reward value recognised in the model, the effective support for the reconciliation needs and social well-being of people and the appreciation of the plurality of goods and services offered on the platform, in line with the needs and requirements of the participants.

PosteXTe:
The digital catalogue with all agreements dedicated to Poste Italiane employees

As part of Poste Italiane’s initiatives to improve the well-being of employees and their families, “PosteXTe” was launched, a programme to purchase products and services at advantageous prices from carefully selected partners. In May 2023, the first digital catalogue was launched, with over 150 participating partners and, to date, continuously growing and updating offers. The partners and product categories within the programme allow for a broad coverage of the territory, encompassing a wide range of offers concerning, personal well-being and home care, essential needs related to mobility but also shopping, travel, sports, catering, leisure and entertainment. 

Poste Italiane and parenting support
The company’s commitment to support Active Parenthood continues in line with corporate policy, which has led to diversified initiatives aimed at fostering gender balance, including through measures accompanying a change in the cultural paradigm in the sharing of family responsibilities, as well as the introduction of measures and paths aimed at enhancing the skills acquired during parenthood, which are also essential for professional growth. The Company aims to generate a management alliance capable of overcoming dysfunctional cultural systems and biases to enhance inclusion and life balance in the family as well as at work.
In continuity with previous years, the company PosteBimbi crèche service remains active at the Rome and Bologna sites for the children of employees and a portion for users from municipal and third-party entities. The service is provided for the children and grandchildren of Group employees. The service is extended to more than 100 families with children from three to 36 months; an employee contribution from the company of 55% of the value of the monthly fee is provided. The objective is to guarantee a flexible educational service in relation to work pace, to combine professionalism and quality in respect of the values expressed by families. The distinctiveness of the educational programme is represented by an integrated relational approach on the part of all the players involved in the process, by attention to the values of environmental sustainability, by cross-culturalism (bilingualism) and by inclusion and educational alliance with families to foster dialogue through innovative communication methods. There is also a counselling service within the nurseries to support families in dealing with their children’s developmental processes, together with the structuring of a cycle of dedicated seminar programmes. The Company has set itself the objective of contributing to the strengthening of measures and pathways aimed at promoting active parenthood, also as levers to combat the phenomenon of denatality and to encourage an increasingly balanced distribution of care burdens. In this context, 4 parenting support seminars were held for all employees, innovative and structured parental involvement programmes with a kick-off and 6 webinars dedicated to raising awareness of dedicated projects such as the Lifeed Parents programme (about +33% compared to last year with a 40% representation of fathers), as well as the launch of gradual actions in relation to the return-to-work accompaniment paths provided for in the company Policy.

Poste Italiane strengthens its corporate commitment to the development of new generations, actively contributing to the growth of young people through numerous initiatives including scholastic and professional orientation programmes, as well as activities aimed at developing soft skills and aimed at the children of employees and children also from vulnerable social realities.

The Group, in fact, has implemented, for the fourth consecutive year, the “Next Generation” project dedicated to the children of employees and children from secondary schools located in fragile territories. The programme aims to introduce young people to issues of innovation, diversity and social inclusion and to the professions of the future. In this regard, several training meetings and workshops were organised throughout the year, with lessons in virtual classrooms to explore topics of relevance for the development of new skills, which involved the collaboration of professionals from various sectors, with whom the students had the opportunity to exchange ideas and reflections useful for their professional orientation. This year, the project focused the children’s attention on the value of the handwritten letter as a means of communication, an expression of freedom and a means of establishing contact with others. An important phase of the project was the Creathon week, a creative marathon in which the students, divided into six groups, tried to design a postage stamp, which ended with a final vote, and subsequent awarding, by a corporate jury. The course ended with participation in a summer camp, where participants came together for a week to realise the winning Creathon idea. They acquired new skills by learning to use graphics programmes, as well as a conscious use of artificial intelligence.

In addition to the two-year “School4Life 2.0” project, extensively covered in the previous chapters, STEAMcamp courses have been created which, dedicated to the children of employees and their families, promote innovation and the valorisation of the distinctive skills necessary to carry out future professions through a learning and gaming experience that stimulates comparison with new models ranging from coding, artificial intelligence, gamification, robotics and much more, whose only boundary is represented by creativity. Furthermore, in 2023, two awareness-raising proposals called “Social Media Lab” were created with the aim of bringing employees’ children closer to understanding the evolution of identity on the internet and acquiring greater awareness of digital sociality.

Also for the children of employees, two new editions of the “Future Lab” programme were carried out, aimed at fostering their integration into the world of work, stimulating reflection on their personal development plan on the ability to design a study and career path. Specifically, the programme aims to bring young people closer to the world of work in a more conscious way, offering them support in their choices so that they can pursue paths in line with their skills and passions and learn about the main market trends related to the professions of the future.

Lastly, with a view to promoting intercultural exchange, 19 study abroad scholarships were awarded in 2023 reserved for deserving children of employees, supported entirely by the Company, with the aim of enabling young people to confront international realities socially and culturally different from their own.

Poste Italiane signed an agreement with the labour unions regarding the performance-related bonus, which, on a voluntary basis, allows employees to opt to transfer the entire amount of their bonus or a portion thereof to cover the cost of welfare goods and services with a social impact, in addition to those already provided for (supplementary pension). These may include, for example, education and training expenses, care expenses for the elderly and/or dependent family members, transport expenses, etc.. accessing tax benefits linked to current legislation and additional company welfare credits.

An IT platform will be used to implement the initiative, via which employees will be able to substitute their performance-related bonus with welfare goods and services.

In line with the corporate strategies relating to paying increasing attention to motivation and organisational atmosphere aspects, the aim of the welfare project is to enhance personal and family wellbeing, enable staff to access a wide range of customisable services, and strengthen safeguards that supplement public welfare (e.g. welfare, healthcare, education, children’s education, support for vulnerable people and assistance), and, in general, to enhance purchasing power thanks to the tax and social security opportunities provided for by law.

The value of the Company welfare platform lies in being able to manage the various generational needs of the workforce in an integrated way, monitoring their level of satisfaction and recruitment, creating forms of continuous, multi-channel and user-friendly interaction, and having a personalised welfare “portfolio” in line with differing lifestyles. The platform will be implemented by applying of all Poste Italiane Group’s expertise and technological assets.