In the ICT the new normal will be made up of a lot of smart working. During the pandemic, explains an Anitec Assinform (the Confindustria association that groups ICT companies) research, an agreement was drawn up in almost all companies to guarantee agile work at 75%. A much higher level than that of the Italian industry where, on average, according to a research by the Confindustria Study Center on over 4 thousand companies, “in the new normal, more than a third of companies will keep smart working: 41.2% in services, 31% in industry in the strict sense », explains the economist Giovanna Labartino. Data very far from those pre-pandemic, relating to 2019, when, Labartino always says, “smart working was present in 12.4% of companies: 16% in services and 10.3% in industry in the strict sense” . The Confindustria Study Center predicts that, when the pandemic ends, “workers and businesses will most likely not go back – continues Labartino -. Also in Italy there will be an increase in the possibilities of doing work remotely compared to the pre-crisis. The massive smart working of the pandemic has overcome many prejudices and has been an opportunity to improve digital skills and rethink business processes. As for productivity, an OECD, Biac and Tuac research on 23 countries says that for 60% of managers, smart workers are more productive because they are more concentrated ».
Small business reaction to reopening
Certainly today, as emerged yesterday at the presentation of the position paper on the future of smart working by Anitec-Assinform, we see very different approaches, depending on the sector and the size of the company. Paolo Centofanti, director of Confindustria Ancona, explained that «in small businesses the reaction to the reopening was the cessation of smart working, probably also linked to the difficulty of measuring productivity and remote work. This is why it is necessary to work to ensure that small businesses equip themselves with tools that do not necessarily require attendance to measure productivity ».
The role of policies
Professor Maurizio Del Conte, full professor of labor law at Bocconi, considered the father of the law on smart working, underlines that “the real great challenge of the future is above all managerial, but in the future there will also be a very large space for bargaining” . The labor lawyer (who is also president of AFOL Metropolitana and former president of ANPAL) has signed an agreement with Arianna Visentini, CEO and founder of Variazioni, a company specialized in organizational innovation and smart working, for the creation of a team dedicated to the development of hybrid skills and interdisciplinary to support the adoption of structural agile work and formulate corporate policies that translate concepts such as flexibility and responsibility into shared rules and good practices. “It is necessary to govern phenomena such as over working or hyper availability, find methods for measuring work performance and manage teams in an organized and flexible way, create value for local communities and reduce environmental impacts, define rules that favor engagement and professional growth of workers: all elements that can find a formal place within the Policy for smart working as the main tool for the adoption of agile work within the organization ”, explain Del Conte and Visentini.
Research
According to the estimates of the Variations study office, about 50% of the companies that, at the expiry of the simplified scheme, may have already adopted structural smart working, at least 15% of these will have extended it to more than 3 days a week. “This is if there are no further bureaucratic requirements or regulatory changes that risk hindering and slowing down the process of policy adoption and blocking agile work away from its flexible, voluntary and reversible nature”, explains Visentini. From the answers provided by over 50 thousand workers and managers throughout Italy, 97% of the managers interviewed would like to continue with work organized in an agile way, 41% of these, however, would like it only for one day a week, 56% for more than two days a week; of these 23% would like it more than 3 days a week.
The position paper of Anitec-Assinform
Looking back over the past months, the president of Anitec-Assinform, Marco Gay, recalled that “thanks to smart working, in 2020, during the hardest months of the Covid-19 pandemic, many companies and public administrations were able to guarantee the continuation of activities . It was a gigantic operation that involved 6.5 million workers in the space of 3 months. Today we can treasure this experience by thinking of new organizational models of work ». This is the goal of the position paper, created within the Smart working table, coordinated by Giuseppe Spadaro of Dxc, in the “Skills for business growth” working group, chaired by Maria Rita Fiasco, vice president Anitec-Assinform. The document analyzes the experience of the “emergency” phase, started during the pandemic and gives some ideas on issues and policies to make the future of work organization more inclusive and safer. Cybersecurity is one of the factors to improve, as Maura Frusone, head of SMB Kaspersky underlines: “During the pandemic, the bring your own device. If, however, the company PCs are subject to constant updates, the domestic ones are not and therefore this makes it easier for cybercriminals to operate. This is a theme that should not be underestimated ». In the management of smart working, today, many opportunities open up but, Gay concludes, “a triple action seems to us to be a priority that aims to stimulate the modernization of company means and equipment, the improvement of human capital through training and greater attention to work-life balance ».