Smartworking, the new conception of time and work space

Alessandra Gangai

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February 15, 2021

“A

radical turning point” is how Alessandra Gangai, Senior Researcher at the Smart Working Observatory - Politecnico di Milano, defines the Covid 19 emergency regarding the impact it had on the world of work.

A drastic and profound change that has opened the way for new scenarios, many of which have yet to be built.

"94% of Public Administrations, 97% of large companies and 58% of Small and Medium Enterprises have extended the possibility of working remotely to their employees and the impact has been overwhelming: the number of workers carrying out the activities remotely for a significant part of their time it suddenly went to a figure of about 6.58 million, more or less 1/3 of employees.

This number includes the employees of different types of enterprises: it is estimated about 1.85 million in the public sector, 2.11 million in large enterprises, 1.13 million in SMEs and 1.5 million in micro-enterprises.

But although the term is now widely used, what we have experienced in recent months is not the "real" Smart Working ".

“Because Smart Working is a free and responsible agreement between company and worker and requires people, with flexibility and autonomy, to choose the most suitable place and time for carrying out a specific activity in the face of greater responsibility for results.

Furthermore, working remotely can mean not only working from home, but also from places such as corporate hubs, coworking spaces, libraries and other public or private spaces in line with the needs and preferences of the worker.

During the first phase of the emergency, however, it was not possible to exercise the assumptions of autonomy and flexibility in the choice of the workplace, nor was it possible to transform the organizational culture, behaviors and leadership styles towards more oriented approaches to accountability for results.

What has been tested, therefore, is a very particular method of Smart Working, with extreme and 'emergency' characteristics ".

“Smart Working refers to a managerial philosophy that introduces a new conception of time and space of work, which may eventually include working remotely.

It is clear that emergency work has characteristics more similar to telework than to true Smart Working, precisely due to the lack of choice of workplace, and considering that one's home was the only available workplace, but following the correct meaning. the phenomenon will remain distinct from the concept of telework, precisely because of its characteristic linked to the transformation of the corporate organizational model ".

What other critical issues have emerged from your investigations?

"The forcing with respect to always having to work from home, combined with the limitation of travel, has led people to perceive some critical issues usually associated with telework, such as the difficulty in separating the time dedicated to work from those to private life (29%) and to maintain a correct work-life balance (28%).

Finally, many workers have highlighted the perception of a sense of isolation (29%), not so much from colleagues in their work team, with whom we have often witnessed an intensification of interactions, but rather towards organization as a whole.

But also from the point of view of organizations, the emergency application of Smart Working has caused some problems.

58% of large companies believe that people's difficulty in maintaining a correct balance between private and professional life was one of the main critical issues of the period.

40% highlight the disparity in the workload of people: this is due to the fact that some workers found themselves having to face a significant amount of activity while for others it was significantly reduced.

33% of large companies highlighted the unpreparedness of managers to manage this new way of working and 31% the limited digital skills of people ”.

"Among the large companies that have carried out interesting initiatives we point out: Credem where the Smart Working project, launched with an experimentation in May 2015 in the Central Management, following the positive results, in 2017 was extended to all the companies of the group, for exclusion of front office roles.

Gradually, the project was extended to all employees with tasks compatible with remote work (over 2000 people).

To deal with the emergency linked to COVID-19, all employees were given the opportunity to work in full remote, reaching more than 5,000 remote workers.

Furthermore, the possibility of working remotely one day a week was also given to the profiles of the front office.

Then Enel, where the project was introduced in 2016. The management of the health emergency was characterized by great support for its employees and the rapid remote control of work activities that allowed over 37,000 people to continue to work effectively remotely C 'is also Amplifon: the project started in March 2020 in full health emergency, and was based on 4 main pillars: Innovation, Effectiveness, Empowerment and Flexibility.

The initiative is part of a broader program of digitization and renewal of places and ways of working, called Winning Workplace, with the aim of better responding to the needs of employees and increasing the attractiveness of the organization in the world of work. ".

Finally Siemens: Since 2011, the “Siemens Office” project has implemented a cultural change, encouraging the autonomy and responsibility of workers.

The emergency did not impact on the work experience: people were ready both culturally and technologically for remote working.

Despite this, when it was possible to reopen the workplace, the desire was to allow people to return to the office, in the awareness that work processes can benefit and added value from the comparison and exchange of ideas from experience of working face to face.

“At the moment, organizations can resort to Smart Working with a simplified and feasible procedure without prior agreement with the employee.

At the end of the emergency, Law 81 will become valid again and will remain the reference regulatory framework for starting Smart Working initiatives.

We hope that the critical issues arising from an extreme and emergency use of the phenomenon will not lead to distorting Smart Working, transforming it from organizational innovation into a subjective right, obligation or bureaucratic fulfillment.

It would mean losing the opportunity to give a positive shock to the culture of work precisely at a time when the country is in dire need of it ".

“The experience has created new habits and expectations in the workers and has matured new awareness in organizations on the way of working.

All this will have to be translated into a different approach to work that will characterize the “new normal”.

A first awareness concerns the fact that Smart Working can potentially concern a much wider audience of workers than that which was traditionally thought: many jobs and activities that were believed to necessarily require physical co-presence, were by necessity carried out remotely and therefore in the future many other tasks could be carried out effectively remotely in the face of an appropriate review and digitization of the processes.

A second aspect concerns the change in the lifestyles and needs of workers which will necessarily translate into a different way of living the company headquarters in a request for greater flexibility in terms of remote days and integration of the technological equipment.

Finally, in looking to the future of work, it is necessary to understand that Smart Working will not be a relevant issue only for organizations, but will have implications for the entire ecosystem made up of services, cities and territories ".

“Even before the emergency, Smart Working was demonstrating its impact on society.

In addition to the benefits of reducing CO2 emissions and traffic, we must add the hardly quantifiable but very concrete benefit of enhancing entire territories and urban spaces that are currently badly used.

Thanks to Smart Working, cities can become more beautiful, sustainable and inclusive, also activating new forms of socialization and new business models.

The exponential spread in various Italian cities of coworking spaces and public areas equipped to work, already demonstrates the enormous social potential of these new models of work organization.

The experience lived has been and will be a strong stimulus for change and in the future the places where we will live and work will still change, as will the criteria with which they will be chosen ”.

"A point of attention concerns the impacts that the persistence of the emergency and remote work can bring from the psychological point of view of people: for example, a sense of isolation from the organization, overworking, a feeling of being always connected and a lack of socialization that they can compromise motivation, performance but above all the psychological health of workers.

For this reason, a fundamental role is played by the company headquarters as a place of identity, socialization and relationship ".

"The research allowed us to estimate for the end of the emergency a slight decrease in the number of smart workers compared to the lockdown numbers, but an increase compared to the numbers of September 2020, in which 5.06 million remote workers were estimated ;

for large enterprises it is estimated about 1.72 million workers, similarly for SMEs 920 thousand and for micro enterprises 1.23 million.

Finally, for the PA the growth trend is greater and remote workers are estimated to be 1.48 million.

Overall, the smart workers at the end of the emergency will be 5.35 million ”.