Auteur/autrice : Newsroom

Sabrina Paulon

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1

Marcolin has more than two thousand employees worldwide. 57% are women. What are your actions aiming towards in terms of inclusion?

Marcolin has always supported company policies that promote work-life balance. This was already the case before I joined the company in 2014. Since its foundation, Marcolin has implemented policies aimed to support its female employees with nursery fees, for example, to prevent women in an area of the Belluno district lacking in services from abandoning their jobs and deciding to take care of their families, either by choice or out of necessity. There’s always been a willingness on the part of the company to encourage gender policies, in a broad sense, because at the time women made up more than 60% of company employees, especially in the production sector. Over time, Marcolin has grown into a managerial company, with an international dimension, and is no longer family owned. This new set-up has also affected human resources management. We’ve developed several policies to support not only female but also male employees, who also play a key role in family management. Again, in support of work-life balance, we have included several benefits, from parental leave also being extended to fathers to the development of in-company and digital focus groups on parenting pathways, addressing, for example, the challenge of the new world of teenagers. These are initiatives that focus on the wellbeing of the individual. With a balanced family life, people can bring more energy into the company and transfer the same balance to it. To promote inclusion, we decided to write a charter, which we have called the ‘Diversity and Inclusion Charter’, to be handed down as part of Marcolin’s DNA, enshrined in a second-level agreement, because one positive thing we have today, among others, is that we consider diversity an added value. But we did not stop there. The Charter will be followed by actions and projects that will emphasise Marcolin’s commitment within this sphere.

2

What company policies have been put in place to foster the professional growth of staff in the company?

This is another important aspect of actions to support human resources in Marcolin. We have set up Leadership Academy pathways with the aim of nurturing the leaders of tomorrow. This year, for the first time, we have put on a session dedicated to female leadership, although the class will be inclusive and mixed. We will continue to actively support the ‘Empowering Optical Women Leadership’ project run by ANFAO – the Italian National Association of Optical Goods Manufacturers. In addition to addressing classic topics, such as soft skills and financial brand finals, we will focus on the typical value characteristics of female employees and how they interchange between the two genders. Without forgetting that this year we have been recognised as ‘Italy’s Best Employers for Women 2023’ in the eyewear industry, according to the report conducted by the German Quality and Finance Institute.

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What are the three key words for successful human resources management? And in what way is Marcolin unique?

When we talk about human resources, we are talking about people, not just employees or working relationships. It is important for us to be able to listen to the needs of new employees because we have realised that they have changed profoundly over time. We have moved from welfare-related requests, i.e. relating to services, such as rewards in terms of remuneration to be used for forms of recreation or welfare, to agile working, a policy that Marcolin had already envisaged for its employees before the pandemic precisely in order to help create a work-life balance. Today, there are those who wish to have more time at their disposal and those who wish to grow quickly within the company. That’s why we have facilitated agile working solutions even five times a week and professional growth pathways, through job protection policies and the Academy, but also with work challenges abroad, for those people who wish to prioritise their professional fulfilment. As far as I’m concerned, it’s important to deal with human resources with flexibility: this allows me to accommodate all employees and to be able to build an organisation that can reconcile all needs.

Longarone Valley

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Is there any emotional landscape more engaging than a shot captured from above?

It seems like an infinite amount of time has passed since, at the end of the 1970s, aerial photography by the Frenchman Yann-Arthus Bertrand began to show us the world through the quintessential imagery-filled point of view – according to many filmmakers, scriptwriters and, indeed, photographers – whatever, from a bird’s eye view, is able to capture textures of reality and bring to our attention secrets that the human eye, from a simple ‘American shot’, for example, would find hard to see. Today, drones have replaced helicopters, and for many artists they are the most appropriate tool for capturing the face of nature and cities from the right distance. Neither too close. Nor too far away. Around the world, the column that explores the world from the perspective of eyewear couldn’t help but begin its wanderings from where Marcolin’s story began: Longarone, in the heart of the Cadore region, an area known the world over as the eyewear district, the only one home to one of the very few museums dedicated to the kaleidoscopic historical evolution of eyewear. And what better vantage point than from above? What is evident, under this piece of sky, a stone’s throw from Belluno and destinations with a strong resonance – such as Cortina D’Ampezzo, the Tre Cime di Lavaredo or even the lakes, such as Misurina and Cadore, with their azure waters and Eden-like panoramas – is an emotional geography of a place, and its surroundings, whose freeze frame depicts the range of matching tones of the natural elements. Air, earth, water and fire, in which crackling echoes call to mind snowy scenarios during the quintessential season of these lands i.e. winter, are the most authentic face of a mountain community, united with five others, ideally located in the central southern area of the Belluno Dolomites National Park.

A natural World Heritage

Suspended over 470 metres above sea level, nestled in the largest province of the Veneto region – Belluno – Longarone is considered an open door to an interregnum separating two worlds, with paths traced to rise from the earth, the peaks of its mountains, the Dolomites, listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2009. It is precisely the peaks of these landscapes that establish an indispensable and undoubtedly emotional bond with the local area and the element of rock. A passion for these mountains that has inspired artists, explorers, such as Vittorino Cazzetta, to whom we owe the discovery of the famous Mondeval hunter, who helped to give an identity to the Mesolithic era in these areas, or writers such as Dino Buzzati, born in this great province of Belluno. The icy influence of the Dolomites flows in the same way in Marcolin, a company with deep ties to the emotional geography of its homeland.

The profile of the mountains as a style detail

While on the summit of Monte Rite stands the Museum in the Clouds, the highest in all of Europe, paying homage to the mountain as the custodian of a heritage that encompasses the essence of mountain life, with its glass and steel domes on the foundations of a former fort, a remnant of World War I, profiling the most striking glimpse of the Monti Pallidi – the other name by which an ancient legend defines the Dolomites – and to the east of the Cadore region, Marcolin allows this passion to be expressed by the brand that is representative of its DNA, Web Eyewear, which embodies the adventurous spirit and love for the beauty of these places in a contemporary and essential style. And it is precisely the profile of the Dolomites, with its reflections, that is imprinted on the brand’s iconic eyewear: ascending the shades of these peaks recreated along the temples, until reaching the heart of the frame, as if on the summit of a mountain, wearing the most ethereal of elements: air, floating and light.  

Marcolin and Timberland Forest

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International Earth Day: Marcolin and Treedom respond to the call

Each year, a month and a day after the spring equinox, the world rallies around the Earth to celebrate it on an international day that has been held on 22 April for more than 50 years: it is one of the most significant calls to action in terms of global participation and focuses on safeguarding the planet. Because Marcolin is conscious of the issue, it responds to the call and, since 2021, has chosen to participate in the development of sustainable projects in collaboration with Treedom, the digital platform that allows people to donate and choose native trees to be planted at a distance, learn about their history and give them a name. Following its development, via a ‘Tree Diary’ that chronicles its growth through photos and periodic reports, from the comfort of their own home, is part of the process. What lies behind it, however, is more than just a note of colour: that green, which does not appear on the Treedom world map, denotes the concrete tension towards an ideal. 

3.5 million trees have been planted

For the benefit of the environment – since 2010, thanks to Treedom, 3.5 million trees have been planted, involving more than 75,000 farmers in 17 countries around the world, which means offsetting the level of CO2 emissions, protecting the biodiversity of the environment and taking concrete action to combat soil erosion and the consequences of deforestation. The other side of this story speaks the language of local communities whose return is measured in terms of increased social welfare and security. 

50 million trees worldwide by 2025

Marcolin’s project – in partnership with Treedom and Timberland Eyewear, a brand in its portfolio since 2003 – sponsors the planting of 10,000 trees, geolocated by ID codes, for three years, through Treedom, enabling each supporter to follow the evolution and the related project in the different continents of the world involved. 14,985 trees, with unusual names – such as the Grevillea shrub that grows in Kenya, reaches a height of 10-12 metres and produces the characteristic yellow flowers whose nectar, attracting bees, promotes vital plant pollination – have been planted in ten countries, but also thanks to the previous agreement between Treedom and Timberland, committed to planting 50 million trees worldwide by 2025, we can witness the growth of a veritable widespread forest, one tree at a time, under the care of their respective custodians.