The Universum Graduate Survey 2005, conducted on a representative sample of undergraduates and new graduates from Europe’s leading universities, and released today, has found that Ferrari is the company that most newly qualified professionals want to work for.

The authoritative Stockholm based Universum Communications has confirmed that business, science and engineering students have once again voted Ferrari as the ideal workplace in Italy. The 3,900 Italian students surveyed evaluated Ferrari as the best company, with regard to salary levels, international career opportunities, challenging roles and in-house training offered to employees.

Ferrari is also very attractive to new European graduates in engineering and scientific subjects too, finishing fourth this year once again, after BMW, IBM and Siemens. Ferrari’s popularity rose amongst business students from Europe’s leading universities, on the other hand, moving up from 26th to 18th place. The Prancing Horse is also the only Italian company to make it into the Top 30 in both ranks.

Ferrari’s positive image comes not only from its outstanding reputation, built through its commercial and racing successes, but also from a series of projects made available from Maranello: from study grants available to new engineering graduates specialising in the area of innovation and research to initiatives aimed at improving the quality of life of Ferrari’s 2,700 workers (average age 36 with 51% of office staff being university graduates). These activities include highly specialised, personalised further training schemes and programmes covering everything from fitness to illness prevention, recreation, culture, computers and foreign language tuition, involving more than 50% of the company’s employees.
 

Ferrari’s extensive health and fitness programme, run in collaboration with Italian Olympic Committee doctors, includes specialist medical visits at the Company Wellness Centre, preventative medicine initiatives, annual check-ups and a personal trainer fitness programme available from approved gyms.

Two further initiatives have just been introduced: Formula Benessere Donna helps raise women’s health awareness and offers specialist check-ups while Formula Benessere Junior aims to foster an early interest in sport and fitness in our children.

With the Formula Uomo project, which started four years ago, Ferrari reinforced the importance it places on the individual employee for the company, thus confirming how much Ferrari employees believe in the Company’s development and how willing they are to be a part of that process. Following this concept Ferrari built the Wind Tunnel, the Nuova Meccanica (where the engines are assembled), the paint shop, the Logistics department and the Product Development Centre.

A new Company-Employees contract has been signed recently. The contract focuses partly on the attainment of certain sales, efficiency and profit volumes which by the end of 2008 may result in a 15% pay increase per worker on average. In addition to this, however, both the company and the unions have worked out production flexibility arrangements which will mean that the factory responds to market demands in real time (in terms of shifts, holidays and part time working). A programme called “Our Grand Prix” gives to the employees the possibility to find solutions to production problems and give suggestions to improve the quality of their work environment. The approved solutions are then periodically awarded. The contract, which is the result of a 15 month-negotiation (without as much as an hour’s strike time), was approved by 87 percent of Ferrari’s employees. In fact, company climate surveys have also revealed a high work satisfaction level in the region of 70/100.