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Enhancing employee and community development Liquigas, Italy 6/19/2018

Change - a key success factor in Italy

Change  a key success factor in Italycut

At Liquigas, we believe strongly in the power of our people: synergistic work, a sense of participation and cooperation are all essential for good business results. In 2017, we had a group of 850 employees working together to make the year a success. 

At the same time, we operate in a mature market with a very low attrition rate, and with a stable or decreasing headcount. In the past, this sometimes resulted in the misleading perception that opportunities for vertical career movement were limited, and that changing positions within the company meant that people were perhaps unappreciated. Of course, nothing could be further from the truth, so we set out to correct this misperception.

Developing professional skills

We strive to continuously improve the quality of our performance to remain competitive – and investing in development paths for all of our employees who want to grow is an important way to achieve this. Job rotation – along with attention paid to both personal and professional improvement – is one of the key elements for developing a set of ‘well-rounded’ professional skills. It helps employees see the positive value in change, and it also contributes to their increased employability.

Transparent, pro-active job changes

 Therefore, we have introduced a clear and transparent process of ‘job posting’ on our Intranet called LiquiJob. We have also implemented an ‘applying for change’ process. This process allows every single employee to pro-actively apply for a position even if it is not open. This means that they can freely express their aspirations to move into different functions/jobs, and it provides management and HR with the ability to use ‘intentional’ job rotations that enable our colleagues to become architects of their own future. Since 2015, each member of our management team has a certain number of job rotations among their yearly goals. Every job rotation is announced on our Intranet as well as in our internal house organ: when a colleague changes their job, we mention and often interview them.

“Tying myself to one position isn’t my cup of tea; it would be constraining for me. On the contrary, changing different roles allows me to meet new people, increase my efficiency and work better. LiquiJob gives value to personal attitudes and talent. It allows me to acquire knowledge from different positions and this is useful, because I can better understand what my colleagues need.”

Carmelo Brugaletta

Positive employee feedback

We make sure to ask colleagues who have applied for a job rotation for their feedback. Here is what some of them have said:

“It is an opportunity to leap at a chance, because it gives you the possibility to grow and see another reality, even though at first it might scare you. It may seem that you have to start again from the very beginning, but after a while all the doubts go away. I really like my new job, and the group warmly welcomed me.”

Chiara Nolli

A positive attitude to change

The concept has spread across our organisation thanks to senior management commitment and clear communication. This in turn has led to a rise in the number of changing jobs – we had 50 job rotations in 2017. This indicates to us that our colleagues are getting the message. Across Liquigas, we have transformed our attitude to change, and people now see that it is positive for each and every one of us – and for our company.