In Italy, during the month of August most of the people take holidays. and its not just a day or two.. the holiday period varies between 2-4 weeks. Majority of Italians take the whole month off. Hence Milan feels like a ghost town in this month.
Having worked in various part of EU, I have never seen something like this before. The question that pops into my mind is.. how can the company be shutdown for couple of weeks ? what about the revenue lost due to the reduction in number of man hour?
If I try to analyse from the economic point of view, I find that most of the Italian companies have either not ventured out of Italy or majority of their client bases are Italian companies. The reason for this I would say.. is also that Italian companies don't want to move out of their comfort zone. They are not big on productivity, hence not so into multi location operations. Now, I'm not trying to be rude to Italians but i'm basing my theory on the fact that the in the last 10 years, productivity of the Italy when compared to the developing countries in Asia or developed countries like US, Germany or UK, has been pathetic.
Also if I try to see from the social factor point of view, it has been a custom for employees to take long break in summer for a long time now, so its difficult to change the practice. Its easy for an employee to take long break in Aug then say, in any other month of the year. It reminds of.... "herd of sheep", which without thinking just follows the one in front of it.
I'm not sure if the book " World is Flat" has been translated in Italian. Anyone getting their hands on it and also having a company to run will thinking twice to grant the whole work force to take off during the same period.
There is the saying.. Italians can never part with their holidays.. Okey.. but for how long will this statement be true..?
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