Eugenio: a territorial network

Networking across a territory primarily means managing to do more and better by offering, for example, welfare services that the individual firm, often a SME, cannot do on its own.

Territorial networks have arisen with the goal to help work/life balance and these promote company welfare projects able to generate shared value across the territory, at times also thanks to cooperation between the public and private spheres.

One interesting case is EuGENIO. This network was launched in 2015 in Mantua by nine companies and three local authorities and it is testing new partnership models in various areas: from services for individuals to school/work alternation.

One example is the creation of the role of inter-firm butler, a gofer who helps employees do their errands. The butler does everyday errands for employees: going to the post office, bank, picking up prescriptions and doing the food shopping.

In the future EuGENIO participants are considering creating a Community Campus in order to organise activities for workers’ children aged between 6 and 14, such as summer and winter camps with specific courses (English, yoga and music), trips and a logistics system that envisages transporting children from the company to the campus.

The EuGENIO network has decided to also launch a collaboration with Randstad to promote school/work alternation: the Talent innovation – Randstad and Eugenio working for the territory project envisages alternation in all the companies belonging to the network and not just one single company.