Apprenticeship, school-work alternation, training: companies are looking for the best model to bring together supply and demand for employment. Often they don't meet and so the large groups, also pressed by the advance of digital technology and the transition to industry 4.0, have moved on to active policies. This is what Enel did when it received the EAfA Award, the award given by the European Alliance for Apprenticeship which recognized the program carried out by the national energy group as "the best quality European apprenticeship experience".
Doing the math, the project led to the recruitment of 300 students after an "on the job training" course, an apprenticeship in the field carried out alternating between school and work with the involvement of 16 schools (mainly technical institutes). The next step will be joining a digital apprenticeship program for the year 2018-19 with the Politecnico di Torino.
So something is moving to mitigate the gap that still divides the world of school-university and that of companies. Other groups such as Eni have also launched programmes: 7000 students included in school-work alternation courses, 179 first-level apprenticeship contracts with upper secondary schools, 350 professional apprenticeship contracts since the beginning of 2017 and a long tradition of post-graduate higher education with the Mattei School.
In the financial sector, Allianz has launched projects for the duality of school and work and 30% part-time apprenticeship contracts for 60 fourth and fifth year high school students in Milan, who have already joined the company. Other experiences worth mentioning are those of Dallara (racing cars) and the food giant Nestlé.
“For many years – explained the CEO and general manager of Enel in Rome when presenting the day dedicated to in-depth analysis of these issues, with the involvement of groups such as BMW, Siemens as well as those already mentioned – European companies have had programs to reduce the workforce to such an extent that a sort of "generation gap" has now been created which risks worsening with the physiological end of retirement. This Apprenticeship program is the best way to fill this void and to move with an active logic to bridge the gap between the world of education and that of companies. It is a gap that will always tend to exist because technological progress is so rapid and the updating of curricula cannot keep up. But programs like this, which focus on an apprenticeship linked to schools are useful and at Enel we will make them structural. We also plan to extend them to other areas where we operate such as Peru, Colombia and Brazil"
