Less ping pong tables, more nurseries

The sports club for the company’s employees.
The sports club for the company’s employees.
Image: Photo courtesy Archivio Storico Olivetti
The company’s canteen.
The company’s canteen.
Image: Photo courtesy Archivio Storico Olivetti

The company maintained a peculiar link to the city of Ivrea where it was founded. It was Olivetti’s belief that the factory should be the core of the local community, and the center of the social and political structure. This meant a focus on conditions of workers, a move motivated on Olivetti’s part, by respect and gratitude, which had the effect of increasing workers’ loyalty toward their employer. Not only was turnover negligible, but in the main Ivrea factory, Granelli told Quartz “fathers and sons worked together, and the employment of families [of workers] was encouraged and sought.”

 

The employees in 1920, with a large female representation.
The employees in 1920, with a large female representation.
Image: Photo courtesy Archivio Storico Olivetti

Aside from the higher salaries, it was the benefits that set Olivetti apart as an employer. Social services, with particular attention to women and children’s wellbeing, were provided to employees and the communities that surrounded the factories. Ahead of the 1950 Italian law guaranteeing maternity leave for five months, the company offered its female workers nine-and-a-half months maternity leave (paid at 80% of the full salary) as well as full coverage of medical expenses, including training for breast-feeding and nutrition, and free pediatric services for children of employees up to 14 years of age. At a time when women were highly discriminated against, of Olivetti’s first 250 employees, around 40% were women.

The kindergarten.
The kindergarten.
Image: Photo courtesy Archivio Storico Olivetti
Kids in Olivetti’s summer camp in Tuscany.
Kids in Olivetti’s summer camp in Tuscany.
Image: Photo courtesy Archivio Storico Olivetti

The company financed a network of medical clinics operating for free in the areas around factories in Italy. It also set up nurseries and kindergartens for nominal fees as well as subsidized after-school services for the children of workers. Summer camps and holidays—mostly free—were also attended by the employees’ children. Kids had access to specific educational programs with the aim of, as Olivetti wrote in his book Services and social assistance in the factory, “raising the child in a rational and modern way, not only from a physical point of view, but also with specific educational criteria.”

These initiatives and social services were implemented with input from the workers, who were represented in a “management council.” Employees also worked shorter hours than the Italian average—45 per week, versus the usual 48—and could dedicate part of their time to self-improvement and training through company-sponsored courses.

The so called ”Olivetti welfare” wasn’t motivated by tax cuts or subsidies—on the contrary, some of the policies were carried on in spite of the fascist government and after the war, while Italy emerged from deep poverty and destruction. While the Olivetti example remains the most iconic, other Italian companies have adopted measures aimed at improving the lives of workers and some, such as company-subsidized holidays, canteens and recreational activities are still in place in several organizations (Telecom Italia and ENEL amongst the big ones, or Loccioni, a smaller company that, according to Granelli, follows Olivetti’s ethos).

Spice up your company culture with some actual culture

Pier Paolo Pasolini during a meeting with Olivetti’s worker in the company’s cultural center.
Pier Paolo Pasolini during a meeting with Olivetti’s worker in the company’s cultural center.
Image: Photo courtesy Archivio Storico Olivetti

“We must go beyond separations between capital and work, industry and agriculture, production and culture,” Olivetti wrote. The factory, he believed, had to be in service to the people. One way to do this was to invest industrial profits in culture, which he saw as a necessary support to technology.

The core of the cultural activities was the large factory library in Ivrea, where both employees and citizens had access to books as well as a large selection of local and foreign newspapers and magazines (reportedly 2,500 titles). The library was also the place where the company’s cultural association—led by well-known intellectuals—would organize concerts (often during the two-hour long lunch break) or talks with established artists.

Pinocchio, one of Olivetti’s Christmas edition.
Pinocchio, one of Olivetti’s Christmas edition.
Image: Photo courtesy Archivio Storico Olivetti

Olivetti also involved poets, writers, and other intellectuals in the actual running of the company: Psychologist and novelist Ottiero Ottieri, for instance, was in charge of recruitment; Giovanni Giudici, a poet, ran the company’s library. The motivation was to run an inspired business and expose workers to the thinking of minds trained in different disciplines.

Culture and art were made part of many aspects of the company life: At Christmas, employees would receive special editions of classic books, or custom-made calendars with illustrations by emerging artists or reproductions of famous artworks. Further, the company would sponsor the renovation of masterpieces such as Leonardo Da Vinci’s “Last Supper,” which took 17 years and the equivalent of over €3 million ($3.3 million).

Idealistic as it might seem, Olivetti’s culture was sustainable—and it was in fact sustained for many years. This is why, of all the definitions given to his experiment, Olivetti would reject the term (link in Italian) “utopian” more strongly than any:

“Well, if I might, often the term utopia is the easiest way to sell off what one doesn’t have the will, capacity or courage to do. A dream seems a dream until you begin to work on it. Then it can become something infinitely bigger.”

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