From astrophysicist to beekeeper, the parallel talent of bankers on stage

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Years and years spent studying astrophysics and working in a bank. To dance but also to create the best financing solutions. They are the parallel talents, the ones that Ibl bank he found when he got to know the more than 800 workers better, discovering what they were able to do beyond their jobs.

“We asked everyone what their passions were and we discovered a multiplicity of knowledge, even in very niche fields of disciplines such as martial arts or astrophysics on which one of our colleagues gave us an exciting lesson”, he says Giuseppina Baffi, human resources and institutional relations manager of the Ibl Banca group.

Hidden resources

This is how the bank, which is present throughout the country and specializes in salary-backed loans, discovered that it had many more resources at home than it could have imagined. Resources and knowledge that it has tried to circulate throughout the organization which has seen its workforce grow by 37% in the last 4 years, reaching an average age of 41 and a female share of 56%.

On stage

Preparation and passion help, but they are not enough to get on stage and drag people along. To do this, the highly scenographic format of the German was chosen, for which the workers were prepared through a series of meetings with Mariapia Ebreo, curator of various editions of TEDxMatera, who was the coach of those who wanted to exhibit. Beekeeping, music, writing, naturopathy, theatre, collecting, home automation took to the stage of the bank’s auditorium in Rome while colleagues from the territories were able to follow the events through IT platforms.

Yes, because the ultimate goal was to allow everyone to participate, recognize each other, recreate sharing, generate a sense of belonging, all things that the pandemic and remote working have not favored. During the months of the lockdown, many organizations were also forced to onboard new hires remotely. «In a post-pandemic context in which virtual and remote working methods risk widening interpersonal distances, we believe it is more important than ever to create meeting opportunities in which to share interests, discoveries and achievements, to feed the fabric of relationships on foundation of every organization», explains Baffi.