The tree, the trunk, the roots, the shoots are the symbols of the Company and the knowledge that grows in OCME and that its workers develop and pass on, together. The hat is one of the most common props. Under it the ideas are born, the same ideas that OCME workers create, elaborate and realize with the production of machineries, for which the company is famous throughout the world.

These are the inspirational topics of the eight painted panels, that the 20 OCME workers have designed and created to complete the project "Moving (creative) Ideas: OCME, at OPERA!" of the Teatro Regio in Parma, among the winners of the open call "Creative Driven Enterprises" promoted in 2019 by the City of Parma and the Committee for Parma 2021, with the support of "Parma, io ci sto! " and Unione Parmense degli industriali, the collaboration of CISITA and the scientific coordination of Promo PA Foundation. This project has the intent of bringing creativity and culture in companies and promoting the relationship between business and cultural industries, collecting project proposals designed to stimulate creativity and access to culture in companies.

Eight panels that summarize and prove the dense training and expression process carried out by the Teatro Regio of Parma and completed by OCME workers in Ridotto and the Teatro Regio's stage-technical laboratories under the guidance of the trainers of Kleis Consulting, partner of the Teatro Regio in the project that brought together 20 of the company's workers who did not know each other and shared a team-building process that culminated in the creation of these artifacts. The painted panels now adorn the walls of one of the company's key locations: the canteen, which hundreds of workers frequent and in which they meet daily. 70 years ago it was the company's first production space, a company that now has grown and expanded.

Enriching the environment with new elements created by workers is an extraordinary example of active participation and the Teatro Regio professionals and Kleis Consulting trainers stimulated and coordinated the reworking of this experience. Making the company its own with an expressive and creative movement is a powerful tool for the development of corporate welfare and sense of belonging and is configured as an important vehicle of communication aimed inside and outside the company.

The project has made available the patrimony of technical, creative and artisan knowledge, an extraordinary endowment of the Regio's productive capacity. At its base, the desire to introduce the theater to companies and to territory from a different perspective, providing opportunities for networking and collaboration and offering projects that can benefit from the activities of the theater not only in an institutional sense.

"We are convinced that there is a close relationship between the vivacity of cultural life and the development of innovation linked to the territory." said Enrico Aureli, CEO of OCME and Aetnagroup.

"Valuable resources that OCME, as a strong and rooted presence in the territory, recognizes and supports by carrying out initiatives aimed at promoting a direct dialogue between companies, territory and culture. In this sense, the experience of Parma 2020+21 and the collaboration with Teatro Regio have given us an opportunity to confirm, once again, our commitment as an innovative reality, not only from a technological point of view, but as a link in a creative chain. An activity that underscores one of OCME's cornerstones: promoting the wellbeing of all workers by making a positive contribution to the quality of our lives. In fact, as a company and as an active community, we believe in the concept of the team and in the value of training, understood as fundamental principles where it will be possible building an happy and engaging working environment. This, combined with an approach directed both inside and outside our corporate structure, allows to grasp the Italian reality, based on innovation and art, and transform it into value for the company and the territory. OCME's creative capacity, which has always been part of its DNA, lies in this".

"We believe that each of us has a creative vein and that each of us exercises it in our daily lives in many different ways, in the kitchen, in our reading choices, in our passions - says Anna Maria Meo, General Director of the Teatro Regio in Parma.

Sharing a path within a creative process led by professionals of the Teatro Regio with workers of a company that in their daily lives do not have frequent opportunities to relate to this creativity dimension was a stimulating challenge for us too.

These eight beautiful works demonstrate that, those who want, can find a key within themselves to express their feelings for the benefit of the community, and this also increases their confidence and sense of well-being in a company that has shown sensitivity and forsight in demonstrating that it believes that this type of growth is as important as the productivity one".

Parma Italian Capital of Culture 2020+21 has the objective of contributing to consolidate the public-private system, with particular attention to the growth of cultural and creative enterprises, and to promote accessibility and contamination between culture, enterprises, the urban structure, suburbs and local communities: for this reason it has promoted four open calls, including one to promote creative driven entrepreneurship as a driver for innovation and territorial development, according to the active dialogue that is developed between culture, creativity and business logic.

The call "Creative Driven Enterprises", closed on January 24, 2020 with 50 submitted projects, among which 8 have been awarded, has been launched to promote those realities that, although they are not part of cultural and creative enterprises system, consider culture as a real input of the production process, conveying creative and innovative content with respect to the economic system of reference.

The primary project objective was to have a concrete impact on the wellbeing of OCME workers: a greater emotional involvement of the people who work has, in fact, a positive impact on the entire company and the entire territory.

Thus, the company is no longer just a place of professional transit, but can develop a sense of belonging and become a vector of culture, more aware as it develops a distinct focus on its resources and opens up to the new. The project has therefore made available to the company creative development practices that can be perpetuated with continuity in the medium and long term.

 

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