“The company cannot be understood as a commodity, but as a community. As a manager, I feel I have the responsibility to leave the company stronger and more innovative in the future”. These were the words of Alberto Minali, CEO of Cattolica Assicurazioni, who on participated in the round table Friday, 10 May, titled "Markets, Business, Work: towards new ethical patterns?” in the Great Hall of the Toniolo Foundation at the Major Seminary of Verona.
The conference was organized for the conclusion of the "Giorgio Zanotto” specialization course in Business Ethics at the University of Verona, the Triveneto Theological School, and the Zanotto Foundation, which was also attended by HR Director of Pedrollo S.p.a. Andrea Aldrighetti, the General Secretary of ADOA (Diocesan Association for welfare works) Tomas Chiaramonte, and the Confederal Secretary of CISL Verona, Massimo Castellani.
To introduce the comparison, the bishop of Verona, Monsignor Giuseppe Zenti, noted that "business is the ideal habitat for ethics, if by ethics we mean what favours development". The President of the Giorgio Zanotto Foundation, Carlo Fratta Pasini, focused on the former Veronese mayor to whom the course was dedicated: “According to Giorgio Zanotto, politicians had the most direct levers for intervening on people's lives and are able to do the maximum amount of good. He had a noble conception of the economy, which he understood as the art of doing important things in favour of the common good”. The Professor of Sociology at the University of Padua, Daniele Marini, then presented the results of research on the world of work: "Technology changes cognitive patterns and how we experience reality. Over the course of a hundred years, we have moved from the concept of classes of workers to that of mass consumers and then to individuals and personalized products”.

The individual is at the heart of Cattolica Assicurazioni's Business Plan, as CEO Alberto Minali recalled: “We are not all equal. Cattolica is made up of different people and for this reason, notwithstanding jurisdictional safeguards, it must be meritocratic. But we are a listed company and investors in the international market must decide whether to invest in us or not: for this reason, remuneration of financial capital must be provided. Being overly idealistic risks condemning the company to not perform. Remember the example of Olivetti, who in the sixties was the first to put the people as its focus: that company was the most technological in the world and didn't prioritize people at the expense of progress”. These are concepts which Cattolica has translated into practice, as Minali pointed out: "We ask new recruits to be curious and courageous and to get involved," he said. ‘We have invested in human resources. An internal job market has been created, our Job Market, to give colleagues the opportunity to test themselves in a different office without having to ask their manager for permission. In a year and a half, about 250 people took advantage of this opportunity. Furthermore, it was decided to give young people, who are our future, an opportunity: during the same period 64 young workers achieved stable employment with the transition from temporary to permanent contracts. Finally, it should be noted that technological development has also affected our Company: as technology is introduced, many tasks are in danger of disappearing. We currently number about 1,700 people and we surely cannot abandon those colleagues whose duties become obsolete: this is why we have strongly focused on training by investing 30 million Euros in our Reskilling Business Plan. "Cattolica's success is the success of its workforce".