Here's how companies will change in the next three years
Survey by Fòrema, a training body of the Confindustria system, on hundreds of entrepreneurs between the Padua and Vicentino areas. The results: the training is aimed at managers and not at new hires. After Covid, stop investments for smart working, better innovation and product. For one in four companies, 2026 will mark a total change in operations
"Competitive strategies and skills development", this is the title of the fourth annual survey on company needs 2023 proposed by Fòrema, involving hundreds of companies mainly in the Padua and Vicentino areas, many in the engineering sector. The first part of the analysis brought out the strategies activated by companies with a view to investments. The second part focused on updating the current trends as regards company training interventions, comparing the current emergencies with the similar surveys of previous years. Finally, the role of the HR Manager was analyzed to understand which methodologies need to be activated today to enhance the role of cognitive and organizational capital. We summarize below the most important data relating to choices on training and corporate strategies for the next three years.
TRAINING: LESS INTEREST IN TRAINING NEW EMPLOYEES, BETTER VALUE THE MANAGER (OR THE OWNER OF THE COMPANY)
The Fòrema survey asked entrepreneurs to identify the level of priority with which the organization intends to mobilize its knowledge capital. More than half of the panel (53%) believes that investing in staff training has a medium-high or high priority (20% of cases), in particular as regards staff with roles of responsibility (top priority for a company on four), followed by operating personnel (21%), only partially confirming the trend observed in 2022 (focus on white collars, management, new recruits: in the latter case, the decrease in interest in training is connected to the fact that hard to find staff).
“From this year, the general management and the ownership of the company are also registered as a relevant target for the implementation of training strategies”, comments the general manager of Fòrema, Matteo Sinigaglia. "In 19% of cases it is these entrepreneurial figures who highlight the highest priority of action".
TRAINING, THIS IS HOW COMPANIES INVEST: LESS IT AND MORE DEVELOPMENT OFFICE; MORE PRODUCT INNOVATION, NO MORE SMART ORGANIZATIONAL MODELS
Moving on to the analysis of the areas and corporate functions that will be most affected by training consultancy, the interventions to support internal skills must involve the design and development offices (top priority in 22% of cases, but with a decreasing trend compared to 2022 ), production processes (21% and up on last year), the marketing and sales area (20%, up), information systems management (19%, but down on 2022).
“The variable of the business strategy pursued partly influences the company areas on which to intervene”, says Matteo Sinigaglia, general manager of Fòrema. “The utmost importance of investing in the design and development of products and services offered to the market unites the three clusters made up of companies that prioritize the environment (25%), growth (23%) and internationalization (26 %), while those who focus on product innovation put the coveted production first with marketing and sales (both 25%, capturing half of the priorities).”
The participating companies report product and process innovation (top priority for 22% of the panel), digitization (21%), management control (18%) and employee development ( 16%), in discontinuity with respect to 2022. The themes of soft skills and smart organizational models, the environmental impact of production, social sustainability emerge from the analysis. A long-term analysis of priorities is also interesting: The digitization of processes and activities is on the rise.
WHAT WILL CHANGE IN THE NEXT THREE YEARS: ONE COMPANY IN FOUR WILL BE DIFFERENT, ONLY ONE IN THREE WILL REMAIN THE SAME
The passage of the survey dedicated to the detection of medium-term expectations (2026), linked to the transformation of one's organization, is interesting. At an aggregate level, the awareness prevails that in the next three years company activities and consequently the organization will have changed compared to the current situation: only 35% of respondents do not foresee substantial changes (it was 29% in 2022). Even if it is always difficult to make forecasts (77% of respondents manage to take a leap against 84% last year), overall, 58% converge towards a scenario characterized by an increase in company functions and activities, the 24% expect a radical change in the company (it was 17% in 2022) and 30% believe that the organizational structure will be focused on a few value-added activities.
DEEPENING
METHODOLOGY The survey, conducted between the months of February and March, involved 174 companies located in the provinces of Padua and Vicenza, of which around half (53%) with less than 50 employees, almost 40% medium-sized and 8 % with more than 250 collaborators. The sectors represented in the panel reflect the production specializations of the territories in which the companies are rooted: almost 44% pertain to the metalworking supply chains, to which must be added the sectors of innovative and technological services (10%), of chemistry-pharmaceuticals-rubber -plastic (10%), wood-furniture and construction (both 8%), food. As regards the corporate role of the survey participants, the component of corporate decision-makers grew compared to last year: in 37% of cases the entrepreneur or director was directly questioned (24%) and the general management (13%), to whom add 12% of responses from CFOs, often the CEO's right-hand man; HR managers were directly involved in 28% of cases, a category that is naturally highly represented given the focus of the survey on skills needs.
FOREMA – Born in Padua in 1983 within the Industrialists' Association with the aim of training its members, since 2012 she has begun to focus on experiential training applied to people development and lean production. After the separation from Niuko (the Srl established in 2014 by Confindustria Padova and Confindustria Vicenza), completed in 2019, and the transfer of the company to Assindustria Venetocentro, today Fòrema is based on the work of sixty professionals, called to propose and manage courses and activities consultancy with a focus on health, safety and prevention in the workplace, environment (HSE), organizational development and lean methodology in smart factories, soft skills and experiential training, employment services. Fòrema works in partnership with many public bodies, in particular it follows projects for schools, ITS and the University of Padua. These are the numbers that make it one of the major training companies in the Confindustria system in Italy. During 2022, 26.368 (+9% on 2021) people attended training courses (in 2021 they were 24.314; +14% on 2020). In all, 41.641 hours were provided in courses of various kinds, with a growth of 7,5% on 2021. Thanks to these numbers, for Fòrema 2022 closes with a turnover of 7,7 million euros, with a leap up 10% compared to last year (when a +12% was already recorded on the 6,3 million in 2020). Fòrema, which is based in its own offices located in the "La Cittadella" business center of Padua, had a turnover of 2022 million euros in 7,7 (+10% on 2021); employs 45 people and collaborates with dozens of professionals. The board of directors is led by the general manager Matteo Sinigaglia, and is made up of Roberto Baldo, head of financed activities, Giada Marafon, head of market projects, Anna Cracco, head of sales and Andrea Sanguin, head of administration, finance and control. President is Enrico Del Sole.