Corporate volunteering is a different way to support non-profits: it creates engagement and knowledge sharing that generates value not only between the organizations involved but also between the employees of the company itself.
In its various forms, these activities have always been part of Pirelli, which in its over 150 years of history has carried on the idea of having to give back to the communities of the territory in which it operates and operates. From the workers' village built in the early decades of the 20th century, to the Piero Pirelli Institute built in 1957 to give the children of employees the opportunity to reach an adequate industrial training and thus also generate employment opportunities.
In continuity with all this, the pilot initiative was also carried out which involved 120 employees this year in social utility activities at the Banco Alimentare Lombardia and the WWF, realities with which Pirelli already had active collaborations. The commitment was four working hours that the company, on behalf of the colleagues who decided to join, donated to these associations.
"After the pandemic and the subsequent remote working, these activities were also designed to create a broader sense of corporate community," explained Donatella De Vita, Head of Training & Welfare at Pirelli. "The company is more than ever before an actor in a community of people who are looking for a high purpose, which goes beyond working hours and which is always and, in any case, linked to the values pursued by the Group."
The company is a motor and aggregator of people, in which a sense of belonging to a working community that is also socially responsible is created. "With activities such as those carried out during the hours dedicated to corporate volunteering, satisfaction is generated in those who participate, favoring a natural engagement that is fundamental in all company activities," explains Eleonora Giada Pessina, Group Sustainability and Diversity Officer at Pirelli.
The two realities chosen were thought of precisely because they represent the pillars on which the company bases its sustainability balance, namely the economic, social and environmental dimension. The project was born with the intention of engaging its employees and leveraging on a common action in an increasingly broad and varied perspective: it is in fact a first and not only initiative that wants to be defined with periodic and even more diversified modalities.
