Small and medium-sized enterprises have had a central role in successfully coping with the sanitary emergency. This role has increased the awareness of their social impact. Even today, on the way to recovery, the company’s welfare strategies are fundamental in supporting the development of the country along the lines of PNRR (health, women, youth, families and community). In 2021, 64% of Italian SME’s have proposed new measures for company welfare, confirming a trend that has more than doubled in the past 6 years, passing from 9.7% in 2016 to the actual 21%.
The data has been collected from Generali Italia in the 6th edition of the Report Welfare Index SME, which this year included more than 6.000 companies from the production sector. The analyzes was conducted according to 127 variables that measure the impact of the initiatives, management capacities and performance. The report has cast a light on the fact that these companies have started numerous initiatives in order to better face the pandemics:
Significant part of these initiatives is implemented for the first time and for 42,7% of the companies are structural and permanent. Furthermore, it results that 54,8% of the companies that have inserted welfare into the company strategy have registered an increase in productivity. Looking into the future, 2 out of 3 companies intend to strengthen their social efforts towards the employees (67,5%) and the external stakeholders: the local community and their supply chain (63,1%).
This year, for the first time, this survey measured the social impact of these welfare initiatives upon all of the stakeholders: employees, families, community, suppliers, consumers. The new analysis method, developed by Cerved rating Agency, did not only measure welfare initiatives for the employees and their families. It also measured the efforts of the companies towards wellbeing, rights, diversity, as the responsibility towards consumers and suppliers. Furthermore, other reinforced areas are human capital development, protection of the workers conditions and the wellbeing of the community. Overall, 105 companies have received the rating 5W, while in 2017 only 22 of them received this rating.
Looking at the future, the Welfare Index also reveals the orientation of the strategies of the SMEs towards issues akin from the priorities defined from the PNRR. In the health sector, for example, the number of companies that considers the health and safety of their employees as central values in their company management is equal to 92,2%. 22% of the companies have already activated numerous initiatives of health and assistance for the employees and their families. Regarding the hiring politics, the companies that are most active in welfare are the companies which are most attentive to women and young people: 51,2% of them have employed new workers (against the media of 39,8%) while their total feminine presence equals 42% against the medium value of 32,5%. Finally, even women in posts with major responsibilities are better represented in these companies (45,5% against the medium value of 36,2%).
