I understand the minister Renato Brunetta. I understand his desire to restart. The desire to finally put the virus behind us. Starting life as before. But even no. There is something ancient in decreeing the end of smart working by inviting everyone to return to the workplace. Worse, there is something old. Passed. As if the workplace were a physical fact: the office, the desk, the colleagues. As if covid hadn’t taught us that for many professions the workplace is “wherever your personal computer is” (it’s a 1994 slogan, not now; now we would say “wherever our smartphone is”).
It is said, Minister Brunetta also says, that returning to the office will give a further boost to GDP, to economic growth. And how? With the turnover of the bars in the lunch break? Italy had not seen growth like that of recent months for decades, yet there is smart working. And the employees of Apple and Google are smart working to name two companies that continue to grind turnover and profits. Smart working is not an enemy of growth, to say it, or to let it be understood, means to think that it is a way to work less. But it is a smarter way – smart indeed – to work.
By objectives and not by timetables. I have to reach a certain goal in a certain time, I decide how to get there. Then, he is right, but this time really, the minister when he says that so far it has been badly done, without rules, without IT security procedures. But precisely, it must be supported, strengthened, corrected in the weak points. To say: we reduce it to 15 percent, not even one day a week, it means canceling it, considering it not an added value but a nice concession. It means that you have missed the opportunity to improve the way you work. Having wasted this crisis.
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