The prizes to the Best Companies 2018, selected by Great Place To Work Italia, will be given out in Milan on March 2, a not-to-be missed appointment,  this year, web-streamed Facebook di GPTW.
Waiting for the final results, we met Andrea Montuschi, HR advisor and coach with a creative mind, who was asked in this interview to sum up what is essential to be become Best Workplace and to give us the state of the art of corporate culture.

109.000 employees have been interviewed in Italy to draw up the list; how does Italian entrepreneurship come out?

In Italy the company’s average profile è quite different from abroad; they are mostly small enterprises and obviously their internal dynamics are entirely different compared to the big companies.
Small family businesses have a lower standard of analysis and managerial culture; also, the issue of company climate was long overdue.
However, the situation is changing rapidly, a change put forward mostly by young people.

Millennials are promoter of change management in Italy?

These young people, born after 1990, now at their first job, have grown up using social media and technologies, which got them used to instant feedback; they demand a continuous response from the management.
Besides the yearly surveys, we need more frequent polls¸ that’s why they are developing specific tools and application services.

How can companies be stimulated to giving more weight to company climate?

Those who are engaged in this issue get a definitely higher financial performance, that’s not GPTW opinion, it’s proved by studies carried out at Harvard’s and other authoritative Universities.

How can we increase the staff’s motivation?

Clearly “The carrot and the stick” doesn’t work. In the book Drive, Daniel H. Pink explains that motivation at work and even in life, doesn’t depend on economic levers and sums up the three chief drivers of motivation:
purpose, mastering and autonomy in one’s own life.
The company that can give this to its employees produces happiness.

If bonus and corporate benefits don’t achieve the goal, what would the staff appreciate?

Communication, which has always been a motivation driver in all cultures and demographies, is more and more important in times of smart working.
Even the concept of corporate benefit is now flexible and personalized: now we talk about flexible benefit, namely outsourcing agreements. Corporate welfare policies are also changing.

For the happiness and motivation of the staff, how important is environmental quality, especially in the days of smart working?

Environmental quality is increasingly important, as it is indeed acknowledged in job interviews. The location matters much, too, and in major cities, if centrally located, is is most appreciated.

Interview by Renata Sias

Captions:
Andrea Montuschi, presidente at Great Place To Work Italia;
Some of the  Best Companies awarded by Great Place To Work last year:
ConTe;
The Adecco Group;
Geico