A code of values
rooted firmly in our people

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A code of values rooted firmly in our people

Fabrizio Rutschmann and Maura Nespoli talk about the challenging task of bringing together the cultures of Prysmian Group and General Cable, forging a new leadership model to Drive the group and its stakeholders towards the future with Trust and Simplicity.

“We are dealing with a challenging task: making the values that we identified collectively as the pillars of the shared culture of Prysmian Group and General Cable, penetrate and permeate the company across the world, by gaining the trust of everyone in the Group”.

Fabrizio Rutschmann, Chief HR Officer Prysmian Group, does not hide the complexity and difficulty of aligning thousands of people, based over five continents, all with different cultures and experiences, on the same path.  

Happily, the journey towards full cultural integration got off to the best possible start, with astonishing progress made in just a few months. This followed the first-ever meeting of all global HR managers from both companies in Milan in April 2018, providing them with an opportunity to get to know each other and share experiences and values.

Listening to the people

Maura Nespoli, Chief of Global Talent Acquisition, Talent Management and People Development at Prysmian Group

Maura Nespoli, Chief of Global Talent Acquisition, Talent Management and People Development at Prysmian Group, explained the steps taken by the two companies to identify the three shared values of Drive, Trust and Simplicity, and how they are continuing to spread these value across the global Group.

“The first phase involved gaining in-depth knowledge of the culture of the two companies. That took place at a meeting of 450 executives in Milan in June 2018, followed by an extensive global survey of 1,500 managers and a workshop attended by 250 professionals from around the world. This ‘bottom-up’ process created a full understanding of the specific characteristic of both cultures, with General Cable emerging as more focused on customers and people care, while Prysmian being marked by its concentration on effectiveness and efficiency. The commitment of both companies to listening to the voice of their people enabled the clear identification of the three new values”.

THE CIRCULARITY OF THE VALUES

“Drive,” explains Maura, “represents attention to the client, to people and an orientation towards innovation, while Simplicity means the capability to achieve our goals in the most straightforward and effective fashion. Trust is entrusting people: a global organisation has to give its people trust, in order to establish and maintain an efficient structure”.

According to Maura, there is no hierarchy that puts one of the three values above the others, but rather a kind of circularity. They are not a set of priorities but ‘inspirational’ values that serve as keys to deal with issues for different people in different situations in different parts of the world. The three values are the starting points for the ‘leadership model’ shaped by Prysmian Group, with the goal of providing effective guidance for implementing value-consistent behaviours in the everyday working life.

A RATING MECHANISM TO ASSESS ACHIEVEMENTS

“The leadership model is the incarnation of our values in the daily life of our company”, explains Fabrizio. “It is organised along six principles, with two lines of behaviour for each value”.
“Applying the model will build a bridge in terms of behaviours between where we are today and our aspirational values”, adds Maura. “Diversity represents a distinctive element of our new company and is a tangible strength for Prysmian Group, given our diversified business and geographical reach that covers almost all of the planet. So we have made it a key part of the model, underlining its ability to strengthen collaboration and cooperation”.
“The leadership model influences also our selection and recruiting processes, starting from the Academy, in a journey that begins with our values, that are then shaped into the leadership model. This helps candidates achieve superior performance, that is, in turn, key to retaining the most talented and skilled professionals within the company”.
“Of course, all this has to be measured in some way, to assess the effectiveness of the entire process and to be consistent with the values. To this end, they’ll be part of the performance review, as the success of the leadership model has to be visible and verifiable”.
“In global markets where attracting talent is not an easy task”, summarises Fabrizio, “what matters is the capability to stream and broadcast our values.”