ENGIE Eps Launches FamilyWorking

A new approach to work putting family at the centre

MILAN--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Regulatory News:

ENGIE Eps (Paris:EPS) announced the launch of the FamilyWorking Manifesto: a new way of remote working that puts family at its centre by combining family balance and work.

The implementation of a realistic Phase 2 plan during the COVID-19 emergency must have as a fundamental pillar the protection of children while allowing parents the return to full-time work.

The data that emerged from a recent survey involving 65 thousand workers and parents of more than 100 thousand children and teenagers¹ report as the main difficulties the concern about the state of discomfort of children and the management of smart working as a "full-time parent".

ENGIE Eps will make FamilyWorking available to its more than one hundred employees: a new way of working remotely that promotes family balance through a flexible working time organization. FamilyWorking is an assumption of responsibility by ENGIE Eps towards its employees, including those without children, which translates into positively recognizing five essential rights: to Technology, to Absolute Flexibility, to Time for the Family, to Wellness both Physical and Mental and to Being a Parent.

The fundamental principle of FamilyWorking is that going to the office to work is a right, not a duty, and the new natural workplace is your home. FamilyWorking is not remote working but the official recognition of 5 rights aimed to positively combine work and family: a responsibility of the top management, who, by choosing it as an organizational set-up, must ensure its fulfillment.

ENGIE Eps, even when adopting FamilyWorking, does not exclude to give the possibility to its employees of going to the company locations, which remain open and operational for all industrial activities that cannot be carried out from home. For those who wish, it will be enough to book the attendance through the electronic calendar, in order to be able to access the offices and plants that will be totally redesigned on the basis of protocols that will be defined together with the IRCCS Ospedale San Raffaele, part of the San Donato Group, to ensure the highest level of security to ENGIE Eps employees and their families.

"In this climate of absolute uncertainty, regarding specially the schools and nurseries re-opening, smart working is not a solution, but a titanic challenge for families, who find themselves having to manage a full-time job, remotely, which does not involve a conciliation with the family routine”, Carlalberto Guglielminotti, CEO of ENGIE Eps, commented. "As an entrepreneur I feel the duty to give an answer and concrete tools, beginning with my employees, to protect not only their health, but also their psychological and family balance. It is because of this that we launched FamilyWorking, a new corporate organizational structure: it is our answer to the crisis, from which we are confident we will emerge soon, but also our proposal of the future’s way of working , in which speed and balance will be fundamental to re-start fast, more united and strong than before”.

To allow its application to all companies, the FamilyWorking manifesto and the analysis conducted by psychology, sociology, management and pedagogy experts, are published on www.familyworking.it/en, available to all.

Because Together We Win.

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FamilyWorking Manifesto

FamilyWorking is a responsibility of the company towards its employees, also to those without children, indicating an acknowledgement of the Phase 2 “new normal” that positively translates in recognizing five essential rights:

1. To Technology. If home is the new office, tools must be adequate. It cannot be acceptable to work remotely without having access to the best technologies, the best infrastructure, and the most realistic and advanced virtual experience. The company must guarantee it, in your home.
2. To Flexibility. Continuous eight hours are the past and a nightmare for the family. Traditional part time is a race with obstacles, and regardless the COVID-19 emergency, getting it is often a miracle. In FamilyWorking, working hours are in function to your needs, the balance between family and work with the possibility of changing it monthly.
3. To Time for the Family. If you do not answer a colleague’s video call it is because you cannot be disturbed, because you are dedicating time to your family or your personal life: the company has the obligation to respect it. Because of this, working relationships between colleagues must be held exclusively via video calls from the home’s workstation. This will result in 60% stress reduction and set a clear boundary between work and family.
4. To Wellness. Scientists are unanimous: mental well-being is linked to physical well-being. To say that you must do physical activity when working from home, but you are not allowed to leave it, is just a slogan. The company will have to provide concrete tools to promote physical and mental well-being.
5. To be a Parent. Raising children while working from home requires not only routine and organization, but content. Parents find themselves to be the only witnesses of the hardships of their children, of their regressions, expressions of fear, moments of sadness and isolation, and also of new ways of relationship that the 24-hour coexistence has brought into the relationship between adults and children. The company will have to help raise the interaction with the children by making dedicated content and experts available to its employees from dedicated activities to be done at home to personal one to one meetings with pedagogues.

FamilyWorking in ENGIE Eps

ENGIE Eps has decided to state these rights for the company, also available to those who do not have children, around which the FamilyWorking organization is built:

1) TECHNOLOGY

ENGIE Eps will provide for your home the same tools you had in the workplace:

- A professional workstation: HD screen, dock station, ergonomic chair, HD webcam and a contribution to your broadband Wi-Fi connection.

- Complete virtual but balanced interaction: by getting used to work only from your workstation, the time dedicated to work and to family is separated. And remember that a video call reduces stress by 60% compared to a phone call, when audio and video are of quality.

2) FLEXIBILIY

ENGIE Eps gives you maximum time flexibility:

- You will be able to work when it suits your family routine better. You will no longer be forced to operate in the 9-18 time slot. By simply using the electronic calendar you will inform the team about how you will distribute your working hours and "private" slots to manage personal or family needs, in which you will not be disturbed.

- If you have children or are taking care of a family member, you can temporarily reduce your working hours. You will only need to indicate each month the weekly number of hours you plan to perform, and your pay will be automatically adjusted. As a part time on demand, but totally flexible, and adjustable from month to month.

3) FAMILY

ENGIE Eps helps you to manage the communication with your colleagues effectively and sustainably:

- Among colleagues, traditional phone calls are completely replaced by video calls. You will talk from the workstation and by videoconference only. Video makes communication more effective, less stressful, and more human. Answering only from a computer allows you to separate work from personal activities as well. It will of course be essential to uninstall the video conferencing system from the company's mobile phone: you will have to do it to give priority to your family.

- Sending mails or instant messaging to colleagues is interrupted from 8:00 PM. Flexibility cannot go beyond this hour, and the time after it should be dedicated to family and rest. A pop-up with a reminder will appear on your screen.

4) WELLNESS

ENGIE Eps helps you to maintain an active and balanced lifestyle in partnership with PhysioTechLab and Fabrizio Macchi, ENGIE Eps spokesperson and Paralympic athlete with 29 Italian championships, 4 European medals, 15 world medals, including 2 golds and bronze at the 2004 Athens Games:

- Every day you will be able to do a fitness lesson via Zoom, with dedicated personal trainers. To motivate you, 20% of business and personal incentives will be paid based on attendance at these lessons. Your family members will be able to participate, involve them, always.

- Every month you will be able to submit to Home M.e.a.sure, the innovative self-assessment test of your physical state developed by PhysioTechLab and the stress level measurement ENGIE Eps is implementing. To work effectively you do not to give up your free time and well-being. Never.

5) BE A PARENT

ENGIE Eps, thanks to the partnership with the nursery-school the Locomotiva of Momo, an educational excellence in Milan for 25 years inspired by the Reggio Approach, gives you tools and quality content to support your parenting path:

- Weekly webinars with a pedagogue to improve your children's growth path. Adult discussion rooms will be led by experienced pedagogues on issues regarding growth and specific subjects emerged as a consequence of the COVID-19 emergency: children's exposure to screens, children’s bond, autonomy management, quality of learning within the home walls and frustration for lack of social relationships between peers.

- A proposal of activities called “challenge” to be held three times a week for children from 0 to 11 years old, to help you sharing time with them and grow together. The objective of the challenge is to involve children by launching very open provocations and therefore easy understandable by children and parents. The challenges will always include the use of materials already present in the house (like recycling materials) or involve children in explorations that will lead them to have a new look on their home. In general, challenges stimulate children and adults to enhance their ability to look at objects in an unusual way, opening possibilities for discovery and generating intellectual, artistic and motor activation.

- A private community, open to the family of our employees, to share with the families of colleagues the activities carried out with children, images, videos and drawings.

- Individual or couple pedagogical listening desk, which can be activated on request, conducted by a pedagogue, with the purpose of supporting the critical issues that emerged from the management of children, rules, time and family relationships.

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About ENGIE EPS

ENGIE EPS is an industrial player within the ENGIE group that develops technologies to revolutionize the paradigm shift in the global energy system towards renewable energy sources and electric mobility. Listed on Euronext Paris (EPS:FP), ENGIE EPS is listed in the CAC® Mid & Small and the CAC® All-Tradable financial indices. Its registered office is in Paris and conducts its research, development and manufacturing in Italy.

For more information: www.engie-eps.com and www.familyworking.it/en

About ENGIE

Our Group is a global reference in low-carbon energy and services. In response to the urgency of climate change, our ambition is to become the world leader in the zero-carbon transition "as a service" for our customers, in particular global companies and local authorities. We rely on our key activities (renewable energy, gas, services) to offer competitive turnkey solutions.
With our 170,000 employees, our customers, partners and stakeholders, we are a community of Imaginative Builders, committed every day to more harmonious progress.
Turnover in 2019: EUR 60.1 billion. The Group is listed on the Paris and Brussels stock exchanges (ENGI) and is represented in the main financial indices (CAC 40, DJ Euro Stoxx 50, Euronext 100, FTSE Eurotop 100, MSCI Europe) and non-financial indices (DJSI World, DJSI Europe and Euronext Vigeo Eiris - World 120, Eurozone 120, Europe 120, France 20, CAC 40 Governance).

¹ "Families at the time of the Covid, a mapping of the needs and difficulties", Committee Let's Give a Voice to the Children, April 2020, Research conducted through a CAWI survey methodology (Computer Assisted Web Interviews) based on compiling an online survey provided through a link and that became viral through the hashtag #diamovoceaibambini. Altogether 65.537 parents interviewed, for a total of 109.722 kids and teens, of which the 3.5% with disabilities.