Hours worked, salary and pension funds

HOURS WORKED IN ACEA

Acea works in compliance with labour legislation and in accord- ance with the National Collective Bargaining Agreements of reference, with a particular focus on cases relating to working hours and the duration of work, minimum guaranteed wages, age categories and restrictions on the use of legal child labour, proper management of disadvantaged categories.

Hours worked in the year, ordinary and overtime, excluding managers, amounted to 11,084,730 hours of which 77% by male sta (8,583,141 hours), due to the higher proportion of men in the company’s workforce (76% of the total).
Analysing the overtime hours, the influence of gender is even more evident: 94% of overtime is in fact attributable to men and only 6% to women (please also see the sub-paragraph Remuneration).
Days of absence totalled 91,097, mainly due to illness, leave (for reasons of study, health, etc.), maternity/paternity leave and trade union reasons (see Chart 44 and Table 48).
The absenteeism rate for the year was 2.9% (3% for men and 2.7% for women), down from 3.6% in 2022.

Chart no. 44 – Hours worked by the staff and absences (2023)

In addition to leave, sta can access reduced working hours, in ac- cordance with the terms defined by the company: in 2023, part- time sta amounted to around 1.6% of total staff.
For managers and stage-three workers, independent scheduling is permitted, which allows “personalized” management of work schedules, in compliance with contractual provisions, benefiting work/life balance while increasing worker responsibility.

For employees with a “fixed schedule”, arrival and departure flexibility is permitted, according to established slots, and a total number of monthly hours of leave can be used during the times established.

REMUNERATION

The wages that Acea pays its employees, excluding executives and top management, are determined by applying the National Collec- tive Bargaining Agreements (CCNL) of reference, which ensure the minimum salary levels according to professional categories. The company also applies a remuneration policy that includes merit-based principles, in line with the Performance Management and Leadership Models adopted, with effects on the fixed and variable components of the remuneration, determining remuneration that is above the minimum salaries set by the National Collective 

Bargaining Agreements (see also sub-paragraph Incentive Systems and Staff Evaluation).

In 2023, average gross pay, including fixed and variable components, was € 47,672 for women and € 47,712 for men, with a difference of 0.1% in favour of men.
Analysing this figure by position and considering the impact of effective average gross pay for women with respect to that of men, note that: for executives the pay difference is 8.3 percentage points in favour of men; for middle managers, male pay is higher by 2.9% with respect to female pay; for office workers and manual workers the pay gap is higher, respectively equal to 9.4% and 13.4%, always in favour of the male component, due to the fact that activities with greater additional pay (overtime, on call, shift work, indemnities, etc.) are mainly covered by men holding administrative and technical positions.

Breaking down the data further by age group it can be observed that: the pay gap narrows slightly for executives over 50 and for female middle managers between 30 and 50 and, for oddice workers under the age of 30 the pay gap narrows, demonstrating that the new jobs offered by the company have more uniform pay, also from a gender perspective (see chart 45 and table 48).

Chart no. 45 – Women's pay as a percentage of men's pay by qualification and age group (2023)

(*) The item does not include senior managers benefiting from the Long Term Incentive Plan (LTIP).

PENSION FUNDS AND DEFINED CONTRIBUTION PLANS

Supplementary pensions are a form of voluntary contribution aimed at generating income that is supplementary to the pension, the amounts paid by workers being invested in the financial market by specialized operators.

The pension funds of reference for Acea staff are, mainly: Previn- dai, reserved for executives, and Pegaso (managed jointly by Utilitalia and Trade Union Organisations) for non-management sta, to whom the National Collective Bargaining Agreements of the electrical and gas-water segments apply.

The Pegaso Fund adopted a Strategic Plan that illustrates the organisation’s management guidelines, including instruments for measuring ESG factors (environmental, social and governance). There were 4,278 Pegaso members among the Acea employees in 2023, of which 78% men and 22% women (see Table 48). The company paid about € 8.6 million in severance pay to the fund and € 3.4 million in supplementary contributions; for some years it has been possible to pay part or all of the performance bonus into the fund, benefiting from an additional share paid by the company.

Table no. 48 – Hours worked, absences, remuneration and members of the supplemental pension fund (2021-2023)