CEO, Enel Green Power (Head of Enel Green Power and Thermal Generation), Enel Green Power S.p.A.
A coffee with Salvatore Bernabei, CPO, ENEL & Markus Mirgeler, CPO, Clariant
David Rae, Chief Product Officer at Procurement Leaders chats to Salvatore Bernabei, CPO, ENEL & Markus Mirgeler, CPO, ...
About Salvatore Bernabei
Salvatore Bernabei stated that Enel Green Power was testing a new energy storage system for the first time in Italy at the Santa Barbara combined-cycle plant, which he described as the first time the system had been deployed at such a scale. He said the startup behind the technology was identified through the company's open innovation efforts and that the industrial environment was subjecting the technology to a "real stress test" that had proven successful. Bernabei explained that the system allows the existing plant to operate more flexibly, which he said supports greater integration of renewables. Bernabei characterized the technology as a long-duration storage system that can provide many hours of operation, enabling energy shifting by absorbing solar power during the day and releasing it when needed. He stated that such systems will complement short-duration storage to provide flexibility and adequacy to the grid, and that in the future the technology could also supply high- and medium-temperature heat to industrial users, helping to decarbonize heat demand and reduce reliance on gas.
Transcript (4 segments)
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Interviewer0:00
How are your teams coping and how are you preparing them for the new world that's all around us now, Marcus?
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Marcus0:10
As Clarion, our CEO came very quickly and said we're going to be socially responsible in this crisis, so we stopped actually a layoff program that was initiated sometime late January. The CEO announced that this layoff program has stopped. Even though it may be difficult during crisis, we have to look at your liquidity and stuff, but we're not going to lay off people in a crisis mode that we're in. So that was completely delayed, and then of course people working from home is the purpose to have them safe, to have them stay away from infection causes. So this was highly appreciated by the people, of course. Then I think after three or four weeks when they were working from home and they felt safe, the mental stress came in, you know, being isolated, being with their families, not having maybe the right environment where they can work. So the offices were partially opened; they could go to offices. And we actually had, you know, official kind of social days where they would say, you know, Tuesday mornings let's go to the office, stay distant of course, but at least you see some faces, at least you can have some interaction there. And so people made unofficial kind of appointments in Switzerland and in Germany. But I think everybody after six weeks now is getting ready to go back and to socialize again and to be around people. And we're working on a staggered program how we can get people back into the offices, like A and B teams and things like this. But we also ask the question: why do we have offices? You know, what is the purpose besides social interaction? Do we really need a headquarters where thousands of people go in the morning and leave in the afternoon to go home again? Is that really the way we can operate in the future or we want to operate? A lot of people feel very comfortable being at home; they say we can save cost, we maybe not need a second car, we can better take care of children. So a balance of this could be actually a better future for the employees and with that of course also for the company. So we're considering how we can change the head office atmosphere in the future.
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Interviewer2:36
Okay great. And sorry, what about yourself? I mean, how are you prepping your teams? Because this emergency gave us also the opportunity to rethink the way we work and the way we behave.
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Salvatore Bernabei2:44
This emergency gave us also the opportunity to rethink the way we work and the way we behave. It is an incredible opportunity for a big change. What we observed in our teams is that we started to develop more empathy. Why this happened? Because everyone now is from the other, and we have to develop empathy, we have to develop trust, we have to delegate more in order to make more sustainable this new way of working. We defined the sort of VADIMAKU, a sort of principle to follow for people. We call it ONE: the first O stands for 'hours' in Italian, so how to manage our time considering also the respect for other people. For instance, don't schedule meetings at lunchtime, or don't work on the weekend or send mail on the weekend, something like that. The second, N, stands for 'in the meeting', so during the meeting how to perform the meeting, how to schedule them, how to manage them in order to be effective. You know, as Italians we are not very punctual, we are not on time all the time, but now we developed a higher punctuality because everyone is connected at the same time. You cannot stay later or you cannot go long in a meeting, and this is a helpful exercise for us. And the last, E, stands for empathy. So once, uh, finish for E emphasis. So we have to develop empathy. So at the end of the day, this has been a good exercise for us to change the way we do things. And the last observation is that we also notice that people are now more focused on objectives rather than tasks, also to manage all these situations. We developed a new OKR; we are doing a follow-up weekly about our productivity because at the beginning we were scared about our productivity, what will happen. And we now are observing people more focused on objectives, reaching their targets, and also doing more than expected with respect to the pre-COVID. So it's a very strange phenomenon from the other side. We are also noticing that people are working more in terms of hours with respect to the previous situation. So my point here is that we are finding a balance, we are in the middle, but so far I mean it is good, the reaction of people is positive.