Welfare and people strategy
Camst cares
Achieving the right work-life balance, using the app to find out about company welfare opportunities, turning to the 24/7 help and support channel and getting involved through ambassador colleagues. At Camst, all these are possible.
In a company community dominated by women, corporate welfare has to be a well oiled mechanism, in the interests of both the business and the people it employs. In 2022 Camst issued its post-pandemic welfare plan without abandoning the remote working adopted during the health crisis. Working from home was one of the most important lessons we learnt from the pandemic, due to a series of intrinsic potentials: better work-life balance; employee empowerment and motivation; promotion of a goals-oriented culture; consolidation of trust between employee and company; environmental sustainability and collective wellbeing through the reduction of commutes.
Entitled “Accanto a te” (“At Your Side”), the 2022 welfare programme promoted and raised awareness of the tools offered by the company by means of specific internal communication campaigns planned in-house. The most important of these encouraged use of the People app, through which more than 4,500 people registered on the welfare platform to benefit from the various services: from discounts on purchases to people care services for workers or their family members, to free preventive medical check-ups and access to grants. In fact, 2022 saw a marked upswing in initiatives involving the provision of credit to support college studies, aimed at both children of employees and worker-students.
People App
In Camst, as elsewhere, communication is becoming more and more digital, thanks in part to the launch of the app for use only by the internal community, giving access to company news, coverage of specific thematic areas (more information about the company, awareness-raising on good practices for the sustainable use of resources) and the sending and receipt of messages.
People Helpdesk
Established in 2020 to support the Camst community during the pandemic, the service continues to be very popular. During 2022 it dealt with about 1,800 requests from employees and members for information and guidance on all aspects of welfare, company life and guidance on public services.
To support this service, in 2022 Camst created a network of Ambassadors to inform people about the opportunities on offer, nurturing the sense of belonging that had been weakened by Covid and encouraging participation not only in local assemblies but also in leisure and social activities, exhibitions, outings and group walks.
Internal Climate
Aware that caring for people and safeguarding their wellbeing is an essential commitment which also involves gathering knowledge about internal expectations, in 2022 Camst ran an organizational climate survey involving a fairly large group: more than three thousand employees were surveyed to measure the collective perception of the climate within the company. The results obtained are a source of great satisfaction and constitute the basis for the work to be done in 2023.
Training means continued growth
Camst views skill development as a crucial factor. The company has a well-established online platform, the Camst Academy, where employees can access both the compulsory training required by current regulations and contents designed to improve their general skills. Not a mere catalogue of courses, but a physical and virtual forum for sharing and developing know-how. Objective: to achieve business goals, creating value and employment. Via the platform, Camst staff can also access “Impariamo” (We learn), an innovative self-learning project for all employees, with inputs and suggestions for use in daily life. The chief educational programmes include the language courses, such as Speexx Essentials, a digital service tuned to the user’s interests and knowledge, not to mention the professional English course run for 90 staff members and managers, and the Italian course for foreign-born colleagues.
Climate analysis
A correct perception of an organisation’s internal climate is essential for improving quality of work, for enabling workers to achieve appropriate performance levels and for providing new career development opportunities. The health of a working organisation depends on its ability to promote and maintain high levels of wellbeing and quality of life, to provide occupational safety, and to improve cooperation and manage internal conflicts, by setting clear, shared goals, increasing processes that improve fairness within the organisation and encouraging individual and collective professional growth. Taking care of employees and safeguarding their well-being is one of the challenges Camst is working on. The first Camst climate survey, launched in 2022, involved a sample of over three thousand employees, who responded to a questionnaire designed to measure the health and collective perception of the corporate climate.
Safety, together
Protecting the safety of its people is a fundamental obligation for an organisation. Reaching beyond mere legal compliance, Camst has chosen to adopt an occupational health and safety management system pursuant to the international ISO 45001 standard, both for the catering area – which includes the Italian group companies Bassa Romagna and Ristorazione Futura – and for the facility division. Therefore, every worker and associate and anyone who works at the group’s various sites, kitchens and worksites in any capacity is required to help to maintain the safety and quality of the workplace, in scrupulous compliance with the safety system and company procedures. The number of employees covered by the system, i.e. 100% of the employees of the parent company Camst and the certified Italian subsidiaries, is 11,578, or 99.3% of all workers.
