ECONOMY

As the production staff made up 75% of the total staff of the company, the interviews were conducted on a sample of 35% of each group. The selection of participants was made randomly by the compamy's employee relations consultant, so that the selection is not considered biased. In order for the sample of employees to be as representative as possible, the interviews always included all supervisors and employees with different lengths of service in the company, different gender (where possible) and different job function. In the other departments, 100% of the staff were interviewed. In a period of 11 months, 385 interviews were conducted, with an average duration of the interviews - which took place on a personal level, in a private space - one and a half hours. Only employees who had been employeed for at least 6 months in the company participated, as during this period they have the opportunity to have a more complete picture of the operation of the company. The questionnaire consisted of 16 open-ended questions, which differed in some questions depending on whether they were addressed to a supervisor or not, and a supplementary questionnaire that included 10 questions with a score from 1 to 5, which related to the stress levels of each employee. The topics covered by the questionnaire were:

Technical issues

Working conditions

Communication issues

Wellbeing issues

Stress levels

After the completion of the interviews of each department, the results were presented to the top managemnt, to the respective director and head of the department. The presentation was about the general findings of each section on the questions of the questionnaire and the general average level of stress.

One month after the presentation of the results of each department, a meeting was held with each of the supervisors, in order to record a specific action plan based on the results. Each finding corresponded to a specific action, with the person in charge of it, the schedule and the final result.

Four months after the action plan was recorded, a new meeting was held with the head of each department, in order to gather the data and the actions that had been implemented until then. Finally, six months after the last meeting, there was another one as well, in order to be informed about the additional actions that took place and to close any outstanding issues. The presentation and results of each section were posted in a shared folder, with access to all, for transparency purposes.