Roles and skills development

The HR service tried to find an answer to this question by reasoning about the Foundation's hierarchical organizational chart and hypothesizing a different kind of organization based on people's skills and individual value.

Thus, in 2019, the pilot project started, initially involving just the HR service and then, in 2020, the BES, DCGE, Procurement and Contracts departments (Pilot 2) to end, in 2021, with all CASSR services (see presentation).

As a first step, a thorough mapping of the activities and skills of colleagues and female colleagues was done through individual interviews and surveys. The data collected were then shared with service managers and a cross-team matrix was drafted that provides a set of macro-environments, activities and skills that put the person at the center, making them more autonomous and empowered and enabling professionalizing and growth pathways.

The idea underlying the entire process is to frame the employee no longer within a fixed and precise role, but to make him or her act at several levels, each according to his or her educational and attitudinal background, within groups composed of people also belonging to different functions. In this way, individuals will be able to deploy their accumulated skills and experience and range between different tasks and activities, actively participating in FBK's mission.

There was no shortage of initial perplexity and reluctance, entirely understandable in the face of an unprecedented and innovative model, dropped within an already complex period such as the pandemic. Precisely for this reason, the staff involved was guided and accompanied with training moments and workshops aimed at creating team spirit and showing the potential of the assumed new set-up. In addition, research was also involved in the process in the person of Enrico Piras of the Digital Health and Wellbeing center, who managed focus groups with interested colleagues and colleagues for a timely scientific return and analysis of the work done.

The management staff project is also part of the Foundation's new organizational and operational model.

As the year draws to a close, we are pulling the strings of the Roles Project that was started by the HR department in 2019 and proposed in 2020 to the BES, DCGE, Procurement and Contracts departments (Pilot 2) to end, in 2021, with the still missing CASSR departments (Pilot 3).Recall that the goal of the project is to recognize the role acted by people and the skills of individuals thereby fostering greater autonomy, distributed leadership, and teamwork.

Particularly in 2021, much attention was paid to Pilot 2, which involved the BES, DCGE, and Procurement and Contracts departments during 2020 and 2021.
Pilot 2 was critical because it allowed for the revision and consolidation of the experimental model adopted primarily by the HR department itself, which will now have to realign itself in light of feedback and new acquisitions.

In many ways, Pilot 2 in fact differed from Pilot 1 (HR) firstly because it involved more actors (to be precise, the BES and Procurement and Contracts services and the DCGE unit) and secondly also because of its duration, covering a longer time frame both because of the constraints imposed by the pandemic and smartworking, and to allow people to understand the new model more thoroughly and adjust to it, considering for this the experience and feedback of colleagues from the previous year.

In an experimental process, the feedback from the direct protagonists of the process is essential and unavoidable, and its collection was facilitated both by the deep collaboration of the teams involved and their managers and by the focus groups conducted by researcher Enrico Piras of the Digital Health and Wellbeing center, also adding a scientific approach to the whole.

A closing meeting is planned for mid-December with the return of the focus groups and the introduction of the Grow tool that will be used for role assignment and definition of the professional growth path.

By the end of the year, the matrices will also be finalized, with associated role labels for Pilot 3 (CASSR), which will continue implementation of the model during 2022.

We would also like to remind you that since August 1 last year, the two Support Units for Directorates and Centers have come into full operation, which are now continuing, led by the two coordinators, in the implementation of the matrix identified through a shared path and individual interviews (see Organizational Chart opposite).

In this first half of 2022, we put into practice the project of reorganization of Services and Staff Units, initiated in 2019 by the Human Resources Service and expanded to the entire CASSR starting in 2020. The experimentation with a new organizational model has allowed us to map our activities, enhance our competencies, and jointly define the professional roles we act in the different articulations of administration and support to Research.

In a constructive spirit and with the support of the HR Roles Team, we also used the GROW tool and devoted time to mutual relationship and feedback.
Due to the dynamism and complexity of our organization, this path has undoubtedly been challenging and there is still room for improvement that can be filled in the coming months.

But it is thanks to this path that today we have an organizational model capable of responding in an agile, sustainable and innovative way to the needs of research and the complexity of the system. We are in the right direction to work together toward challenging goals, with the understanding that this process passes through people and each of us.

Having reached the first stage, we are now ready to tackle the personal and team professional growth part.

In thanking you for your contribution so far, we hope you will also want to be protagonists in this second stage that looks at individual growth, but also from an expanded team perspective.

II 20 aprile 2023 si è avviata la mappatura dei ruoli e delle competenze per l'anno 2023. Tutto il personale delle Articolazioni organizzative Amministrative e a Supporto della Ricerca e Studio, Organismi Interni e Unità di Staff è stato invitato a svolgere l'autovalutazione sul tool Grow. 

In parallelo i Responsabile di Servizio/Unità si occuperanno dell'aggiornamento delle matrici e della chiusura e validazione del ruolo dei collaboratori e delle collaboratrici entro il 31 maggio.

La guida completa sull'utilizzo di Grow per la mappatura dei ruoli e le competenze è consultabile qui.