The Prada Group has partially reopened its Arezzo factory, with 300 employees in the first wave back.
The Arezzo facility, which includes sample-making and prototyping departments, is the first to open, followed by those in Umbria, Marche and Veneto, and finally the Group's Milan headquarters, when possible.
Workers are coming back to work with a raft of safety measures to protect their health, including reduced hours, split shifts and staggered access to the site to provide social distancing of two metres at all times. Employees will have daily health checks and full personal protective equipment, as well as hand sanitisers available throughout the premises. Lastly, the canteen will not be reopened until it is deemed safe to do so.
The group is also the first Italian company to provide double screening, supported by Careggi hospital in Florence. This protocol will be spread to all factories and offices company, and countrywide.
The cost of this extensive and comprehensive testing will be carried by the Group. CEO Patrizio Bertelli said: “In this emergency situation we have not only been considering when to reopen our manufacturing facilities, but above all how to reopen them in total security, in order to safeguard our employees’ health and protect them from the virus.
"We therefore immediately sought advice from leading healthcare facilities and from specialist pharmaceutical companies to identify the top-rated medical technology currently available to safeguard the health of our employees with these virus-screening procedures and to contain the virus.
"The introduction of these measures means we can now confidently restart production in Tuscany, and look forward to extending the above protocols to our plants and offices in other regions, when they reopen”.
