SCAI GROUP, IN-HOUSE MASTER ACADEMY: THE FIRST TERM COURSES WERE ATTENDED BY 19 MANAGERS FROM ALL OVER ITALY SPECIALISED IN DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION. LEADERSHIP AND ABILITY TO INNOVATE WERE THE MAIN OBJECTIVES OF THE SCAI GROUP STRUCTURE DEDICATED TO CONTINUOUS TRAINING COURSES FOR THE EMPLOYEES OF THE INDIVIDUAL DIVISIONS
The last stage of the first edition of the SCAI Group Master Academy took place on 19 May 2023 at the Circolo del Design in Turin.
Relational skills, leadership, innovation skills, disruptive technologies, managerial growth. These are the objectives of the SCAI Group’s in-house Master’s Academy in Turin, which was created to transfer skills to employees in the Middle Management bracket, in line with the real and concrete professional needs found in the various business areas. Closing the training gap that causes mismatching between labour demand and supply and attracting new talent are, in fact, among the most relevant priorities that define the SCAI Group strategies today and can support employee retention.
Continuing education, awareness also of the value of mistakes in the path of leadership building, being yourself in the work of ‘teamship’ instead, were some of the insights revealed on the last day during the moments dedicated to leadership stories.
In the afternoon, space was given to the four end-of-course pitches presented by Academy students on internal and external communication, and to discussions on useful and innovative project management tools for a collaborative and success-oriented vision.
The courses in the first part of the year, a total of 51 hours of training, divided into 6 face-to-face meetings for a total of 31 speakers and 22 hours of online workshops, were attended by 19 employee managers from all over Italy who hold key roles within the Group, are transversal to the corporate organisation and called upon to become promoters of innovation within and, above all, towards the market: innovators of ideas, solutions, skills and consultancy approach. The participants (average age 36 years, 90% of whom had a university degree) were distributed by function as follows: HR 5%, technical area 52%, 21% project managers, functional analysts 15%, service managers 7%. Of the total, women accounted for 37%.
In-person lectures were held in the main SCAI locations (Milan, Genoa, Rome, Padua, Bari, Turin).
The programme was divided into three main sessions, the soft skills session (leadership, relationship management, innovation, storytelling) of 34 hours, the hard skills session (technology, business discussion, problem solving methodologies) of 17 hours and the ‘leadership stories’ session.
The soft skills session covered classic topics: from public speaking to resource management; from mindfulness to Design Thinking and also innovation courses related to leadership, strategy and ecosystem.
In the hard skills session, the focus was on technological topics such as Artificial Intelligence, Cloud, Cyber Security, Virtual Reality, ERP, Data Management, and managerial skills such as economic data analysis and management control.
The format of the ‘leadership stories’ accompanied the physical meetings with the testimony of the CEOs of the Group’s companies and guests who recounted their own successful path from a professional and human point of view, sharing the main challenges they faced.
Through the Academy SCAI intends to increase the sense of belonging and involvement in activities that are broader than the particular tasks of each employee. This mode of intervention results in the creation of a widespread innovative organisation that goes beyond the logic of an isolated laboratory of ideas, providing people with the confidence to exploit their skills.
Massimiliano Cipolletta, CEO of SCAI Group, said: ‘The idea of implementing an internal Academy within the Group was inspired by the realisation that continuous training and talent retention go hand in hand. Indeed, providing an environment in which one can experience growth paths tailored to one’s interests helps to make the workplace attractive and interesting on a day-to-day basis. Each person in the SCAI Group, in this way, is engaged in challenging his or her own skills, beyond set ideological patterns. To sum up, it is appropriate for each of us to adopt a mindset that is open to change, able to constantly question itself and learn new methodologies to approach the content and problems that arise from time to time from different angles. The right attitude is one that is open to constant change, as we find ourselves experiencing progressively evolving competitive scenarios‘.
