The right to higher tasks must be verified from a quality standpoint

The Court of Cassation, with judgement No. 19725 dated 8 August 2017, confirmed the principle according to which in the presence of mixed tasks, the analysis aimed at verifying if the employee has the right to achieve higher qualification respect to the one assigned must be performed not on the basis of a simple quantitative comparison between said tasks (for example: hours worked), but through a qualitative analysis in relation to the greater professional complexity of the tasks assigned. In particular, the Court, confirming the judgements on the matter, agreed with the position of a group of employees who, in order to replace some of their managers had been assigned higher tasks for a few days in a month over the period of more than three years. In such framework, in the opinion of the Court, the aforementioned workers, despite the lower tasks were carried out for a greater number of hours respect to the more complex professional ones, had the right to be recognized a contractually higher job position level and related compensation difference. Therefore, according to the judgement under review, in comparing mixed tasks, the ones to prevail are those more significant from a professional standpoint as long as they are not performed sporadically or occasionally.