More than 700 people, who worked at the construction sites with stringent safety measures, and 170 TELT employees, working 170,000 hours in teleworking with more than 9,000 meetings via video conferencing, ensured the operability of the construction sites and the company during this year of work in the pandemic.

Between 2020 and 2021, the public promoter in charge of building the Lyon-Turin railway line had, like everyone else, to adapt its activities to the Covid emergency with a few special aspects: the management of construction sites that have never really stopped (an exception for the sector in both countries); the need to make progress with the awarding of contracts (which will be completed this year with the awarding of more than €3 billion in works for the 57.5 km of tunnels through which the trains will pass); the binational organisation and management of staff in different locations in Italy and France. The common thread that has guided the actions has been attention to people.

TELT’s approach

The emergency situation has accelerated processes already present in the company which, operating in France and Italy, had remote working methods in its DNA. These methods have been consolidated and strengthened: from teleworking to relations with companies, interaction and working tools have all been implemented and adapted as necessary.

Since the end of February 2020, the company has organised a control room to manage these challenges and the various needs of employees, companies and suppliers, acting with a particular focus on the objectives of the Global Compact, of which TELT has been a part since 2015: protection of workers’ health, support for their well-being, training, dignity of work. This in addition to the objectives that have always remained a priority: that of environmental protection, which is already a focus in the offices and construction sites.

In order to respond to the changing work organisation and establish a direct and continuous connection with employees and TELT’s main contacts, a series of actions have also been put in place: from the TELT Academy training seminars, to the virtual cafés to introduce new employees, the company has built solutions together with its employees and collaborators to favour personal, even more than professional, integration.