The health emergency from Covid has affected the whole world and dragged it into a dramatic whirlwind when the lockdown forced everyone to change their lifestyle. Many companies had to adapt immediately to the agile way of working in smart working, adopting the simplified procedure for their employees. What has really changed after everything that has happened in reference to this very agile remote working mode? In reality, what happened in companies in the spring months is not a real model of smart working. It is more of a form of agile home work carried out in an emergency, more flexible than the so-called telework already known in the Italian legal system. The fact is that, willy-nilly, the pandemic has certainly broken down several rigid stakes regarding the opportunity to adopt smart working as a way of working, both from the side of companies and from that of employees, even in normal everyday life.
More and more companies, just to face this emergency period, have had to rely on a smart technology consultant, first of all to adapt to everything that involves such a way of working. For example, the changes necessary to adapt to the rules that are sanctioned by the GDPR for all aspects related to data protection, on the protection of sensitive data, or for the regulations to be followed on the subject of smart insurance e cyber security. These are just a few examples that necessarily make us understand how it is necessary to be able to count on the advice of a company that has been dealing with these aspects for a long time..
Working Policy and cyber security on Smart Working
Looking at the statistics, the evidence is clear. Although the law establishing smart working is n.81 of 2017, before the spread of Covid-19 only 7% of workers used to exploit remote work on a continuous or even occasional basis, particularly in the way of agile work. The trend reversed significantly after the lockdown. Even if we are no longer in full emergency, companies continue to follow strict protocols in the business environment that lead to a smaller presence of the workforce and employees within the offices and company spaces.
The latest estimates speak of a presence in offices of 40%, according to Eurofund data. Statistics that actually give credit to the important change that is taking place, which is stimulated and driven by two basic reasons:
- first of all, clearly, the need for protection;
- but at the same time, also a desire to reorganize many activities with the management of remote work, taking advantage of more flexible and effective work management solutions, also in view of an economic recovery and the new online markets opened up by Covid.
Smart working policy professionals
For the company, remote work management involves a series of very delicate tasks. Since the international law firm Damiani & Damiani has been assisting companies for all legal and economic needs for over 40 years, it was mandatory to develop a task force capable of ensuring the best consulting service for the adoption of smart working. The guidelines for the Smart Working edition have been developed with targeted skills and able to guide the company in organizing the work of its employees without more time and space constraints.
An important process that must be tackled at a company level by relying on specific smart working consultants, especially because there is a real challenge on a cultural level to overcome. However, the commitment will also serve to readjust and re-design the work spaces, as well as to transform many decision-making processes or important activities into digital mode into perfect IT security, which previously were carried out strictly in person or in presence.
Work smarter not harder
The cases that include the name of smart working or agile work are clearly distinguished from teleworking. Teleworking is a strict way of working. Practically the same work takes place and for the same hours at home instead of on site. Smart working, on the other hand, defines greater flexibility in the search for the days in which to take advantage of this working method, as well as the place in which to carry out the work activity, which does not always coincide with one’s own home or even, as it is obvious, to the traditional workplace. All conditions that can be negotiated in individual agreements between employee and employer.
Therefore, the interest of companies that want to implement and experiment with this new way of working is increasing, but not everyone is ready for such a change. Precisely for this reason it is essential to develop and adopt a targeted company policy, renamed agile working policy. It is a series of rules established as a priority, which shape agile work. At the same time, there is an increasingly pressing need to rely on professionals who offer a complete and effective smart working consultancy service, able to always offer the best solution to any digital problem for daily business activities.
Smart goals examples for work
The organizational model of flexibility on which smart working is based must have a close link with work by objectives and is linked to a large number of fundamental aspects, each with its own impact on the company reality. Organization is fundamental both from the point of view of collaboration and trust, as well as with regard to self-management and the enhancement of behavioral sciences but also from the point of view of working time.
All these aspects are fundamental to understand, since they serve to manage in an impeccable way some potential risks of this way of working, such as the risk of isolation, or the optimal management of the relationship between colleagues and managers, as well as the evaluation of remote performance of remote work and the aspect of cyber security. Consequently, it is clear that individual companies must necessarily aim at investments also in the training of their workers, organizing specific courses and courses for both managers and the group of collaborators.
Advantages of smart work of the adoption of smart working as a long-term and no longer impromptu solution to cope with the emergency, there are many and also have an impact on the environment.
The savings for the company are not negligible, from the lower economic impact for the management of the offices, to the possibility of adopting flexible contracts, up to the economic savings in terms of supplies. But among these the minor impact on the environment due to the large masses of people forced daily to move from one point to another in the city to go to work is not negligible. The movements will no longer have to be faced necessarily with traditional means of transport and in the most important urban areas, stimulating a reduction in the rate of pollution at the atmospheric level, especially at peak times. It is an important change which, as repeatedly stressed, must intervene in a particular way at the cultural level, because it is a revolution to be embraced in its entirety and not only halfway.
