“How I taught them (remotely) how to work at an electrical substation”

In phase two of the Covid-19 emergency, 32-year-old Iacopo Latino, from Terna’s Technical Team in the Florence Plant Unit is back in the office. Specialised in the operational activities involved in electricity transmission, during lockdown he has also been a remote tutor for colleagues working at substations. “I mainly deal with the operation and maintenance of electrical systems as operational technical personnel,” he says. In practice, Latino and his colleagues from the office are organise and monitor the activities of the team in the field for maintenance and checks.

“We are in daily contact with our colleagues on the ground: in the morning, when we brief them on the tasks of the day, but also to involve them in more complex activities and for the drafting of documents and work plans. It’s a team effort”.

With the beginning of the Coronavirus emergency things are obviously somewhat different, especially in terms of everyday life. “Our most complex works and detailed checks have stopped. All the maintenance work that we were able to do without serious interventions and activities has gone ahead,” he says. “Between March and April, us technicians have formed two teams and alternated between working in the office and working from home. The on-site support for the operations team has been there as always, and we were available 24/7 every other week, even from home, in case of need”.

But the obligations around smartworking hasn't created significant difficulties for him: “It's still working on a computer, doing that from home hasn’t been difficult. Our team’s work activities can be very well organised even remotely, through our information systems and programmes," says Latino. “Now that business is back in full swing though, staying at home for several more weeks is more difficult, also because you can start to lose touch with the reality of the work. But overall I liked it, also because I live 50 km from the office...”.

Another new experience for Latino in this complicated period was his role as the Terna teacher for the ‘Off Voltage Working Methods Electrical Substations’ [Metodi di Lavoro Fuori Tensione Stazioni Elettriche] course. “I’ve never been a teacher before. I trained my colleagues for eight days, with all of us at home. It was a great way to make the most of this time away from the field and to get to know each other even better”. Latino’s course is Terna’s first course for electrical substations and, furthermore, one of the first to be held entirely online.

“I was the only teacher for my plant unit. The sessions lasted two working days, eight hours each. The workers were divided into four ad hoc groups in order to match people on call, at home and at work. For example, I had sessions with groups of four people, but also a session with one person”. The lessons are held on video calls and explore various topics which workers already face every day. And remotely, interaction becomes more crucial than ever: “It’s very important to have everyone’s involvement, also talking to a wall for eight hours is very hard! But fortunately everyone found the course interesting and there were lots of topics for discussion. We also created a quiz to finish on, a discussion to see if everyone really understood the material covered. But no homework, they were lucky!”

So (for now) this teaching interlude has come to an end, the beginning of phase two means it is time for Latino and his colleagues to come back to the office permanently, with all the necessary security measures.

"We had the chance to get used to it over the past few months, working from the office every other week. Now we have this new perspective but it wasn't easy at first. We're lucky to have separate offices, so it's every man for himself. Sure, there are times when we meet, but we all have the mandatory masks and there are new automatic sanitizing gel dispensers throughout the office. The spaces are sanitized every day, we try to do our part to contribute by keeping everything tidy and, this is how we are moving forward. But the climate has certainly changed".

What do you mean? "This situation has calmed everyone down a little bit, from a business point of view. Especially with regard to our pace, we realised that it was perhaps a little too frenetic before." Without a doubt, the crisis has revealed the need to be able to adapt quickly to new developments, at work but not only, as was the case for Latino: "Personally, I had to postpone my wedding, and since it was close, waiting is hard. For me personally it was bad, but looking at the big picture, there are worse things".