Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google, has recently announced that the company intends to permanently integrate remote working into its working practices, albeit with a hybrid approach, e.g. three days in the office and two days remotely.
These statements highlight the growing interest in remote working, a system that many companies were forced to try out for the first time during the lockdown and which has now become a real revolution. In many cases, it has become a structural choice due to its undoubted advantages, from a better work-life balance to reducing the stress of travelling to work.
A NEW NORMALITY
At present, according to INAPP (National Institute for Public Policy Analysis) data, 54% of employees in large companies work wholly or partly on a remote basis; furthermore, according to an analysis conducted by the Milan Polytechnic Observatory and Randstad Research, remote working may involve 3 to 5 million workers in the coming months. The path should be the one traced by the CEO of Google: according to a recent study by Fondirigenti, people will prefer to split the week in two or to alternate days in the office and remote work, so as not to sacrifice social relations and physical interaction with their colleagues. According to Vittorio De Luca, managing partner of the De Luca & Partners law firm, specialised in labour law and GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation), “in the near future, remoteworking policies will become more and more a rule and no longer just an exception”. remoteworking policies have also been promoted by the law: the Riaperture Decree has extended until 31 July the possibility for employers to use this instrument with a unilateral act, i.e. without having to sign an individual agreement. This deadline should be extended until 31 December also for the private sector, thus aligning it with what is already in place for the public administration. “However,” De Luca points out, “at the end of the emergency period it will be appropriate and necessary to regulate the relationship between the parties involved, i.e. employers on the one hand and workers (remote workers) on the other hand.”
THE PROBLEMS TO BE SOLVED
Remote working was first introduced in the Italian system by Law 81/2017. Remote working, says De Luca, is defined in the law “as a new and flexible way of organising employment, with no exact definition of the place and time of work, providing that the activity can take place partly inside the company’s premises and partly outside, without a fixed location, though in compliance with the limits on maximum daily and weekly working time established by law and by the applicable national collective agreement. In order for this to happen”, he adds, “an agreement, strictly in writing (for the purposes of proof and administrative regularity), must be entered into by the company and the worker”. And it is precisely the release from spatial and temporal limits, notes the expert, “which, if not regulated in advance, might have negative consequences for both the employee and the employer, from both a professional/work and a social/personal point of view”.
“Indeed, remote working has made the time profile of the service not essential, placing the objectives and performances of the resources concerned at the centre”, explains De Luca. So that “it is of primary importance for employers to be able to check and assess the results of remote workers”, whilst also determining “the forms of exercise of the employer’s power, paying attention to the manner, purpose and content of the same”. There follows the need, he concludes, to “introduce agreements, accompanied by internal procedures and regulations, which govern these aspects, also instructing the worker on the use of work equipment and on company security and personal data protection”.
Law of 6 May 2021, no. 61 converting Decree Law no. 30/2020 recognised that remote workers have the right to disconnect from technological equipment and IT platforms, under any agreements signed by the parties and without prejudice to any agreed periods of availability. The exercise of the right to disconnect, which is necessary to protect the worker’s rest time and health, cannot affect the employment relationship or pay. The law establishing remote working (L. no. 81/2017) requires that the individual agreement between employer and employee must identify “the technical and organisational measures necessary to ensure the worker’s disconnection from technological work equipment.” The law establishes a worker’s right to disconnection, which is necessary to protect the worker’s rest and health and it must necessarily be regulated in the individual agreement. The legislator seems to comply with the Resolution of the European Parliament of last January. The European Commission was invited to draw up a Directive, to which the Member States will have to adapt, that guarantees remote and non-smart workers the right to disconnection.
Other related insights:
Elena Cannone (Senior Associate and Compliance Focus Team Leader – De Luca & Partners) and Andrea Di Nino (Employment Consultant – HR Capital) will participate as guest speakers in “HR: TIME TO CHANGE” organised by the Italian-Germanic Chamber of Commerce next 27 May.
Thursday 27 May 2021
Videoconference event
(from 4 to 6.30 pm)
The year 2020 was marked by the Covid-19 pandemic, which forced companies to reorganise the way they work. In this situation, remote working helped counter the spread of the virus in the workplace.
What will happen after the pandemic? Will remote working go from being an exception to becoming the norm? What are the challenges facing companies and their management? What are the advantages of remote working?
These are some of the topics that Elena Cannone and Andrea Di Nino will discuss during the event.
Click here to consult the programme and receive further details.
Monday 8 March, starting at 12:00 live on Class CNBC (Sky channel 507) and on www.milanofinanza.it appointment with #Ripartitalia, the agenda for the future of work. Vittorio De Luca will be one of the guests, moderated by Andrea Cabrini, to talk about new rules for work.
The pandemic crisis has radically transformed the dynamics and processes of the job market, requiring adoption of new organisational models.
Vittorio De Luca, depicts a picture of the shortcomings and necessities of the current normative framework in terms of new forms of “liquid” work.
What normative interventions can ensure the right flexibility and productivity for companies to compete in the post-pandemic market? What protections should be guaranteed for those workers impacted by the process of change? What solutions are adopted abroad?
Click here to follow the interview.
The interview for the economic and social observatory Riparte Italia.
Many experts in the field doubted its legitimacy due to the open contrast between the ban with the constitutional right to free enterprise; doubts that were unquestionably fuelled by continuous extensions of the ban which, initially introduced for 3 months, has now been in effect for more than a year. Assessment of its legitimacy depends on the weight of the various interests and values at play, all constitutionally related: on one hand the right to health (individual and collective) and work, and on the other that of free enterprise. Critical signs on the observance of restrictions have started to emerge in legal systems similar to ours.
For example, in Spain, with an emergency normative framework similar to ours, the Court of Barcelona removed the ban on dismissals and ruled a dismissal for economic reasons legitimate, considering the ban in conflict with both the constitutional framework and with EU law, which protects freedom of enterprise as one of the fundamental rights of the EU.
Returning to us, additional extensions of the ban on dismissals in Italy, which seem certain, should reduce their range of action in the future, finally coming to grips with the various opposing interests, loosening the reins in favour of a return (at least partly) to forms of flexibility for human resource management by enterprises.
Clearly, additional extensions of the ban would only risk postponing a problem which sooner or later must inevitably be dealt with, considering that the continuing pandemic emergency has resulted, for all intents and purposes, in the worst economic crisis since the postwar period, destined to have far-reaching, widespread effects in coming years.
The interview for the economic and social observatory Riparte Italia.
Many experts in the field doubted its legitimacy due to the open contrast between the ban with the constitutional right to free enterprise; doubts that were unquestionably fuelled by continuous extensions of the ban which, initially introduced for 3 months, has now been in effect for more than a year. Assessment of its legitimacy depends on the weight of the various interests and values at play, all constitutionally related: on one hand the right to health (individual and collective) and work, and on the other that of free enterprise. Critical signs on the observance of restrictions have started to emerge in legal systems similar to ours.
For example, in Spain, with an emergency normative framework similar to ours, the Court of Barcelona removed the ban on dismissals and ruled a dismissal for economic reasons legitimate, considering the ban in conflict with both the constitutional framework and with EU law, which protects freedom of enterprise as one of the fundamental rights of the EU.
Returning to us, additional extensions of the ban on dismissals in Italy, which seem certain, should reduce their range of action in the future, finally coming to grips with the various opposing interests, loosening the reins in favour of a return (at least partly) to forms of flexibility for human resource management by enterprises.
Clearly, additional extensions of the ban would only risk postponing a problem which sooner or later must inevitably be dealt with, considering that the continuing pandemic emergency has resulted, for all intents and purposes, in the worst economic crisis since the postwar period, destined to have far-reaching, widespread effects in coming years.
If the ban is not extended the companies which to date have been forced to maintain their employment levels will certainly take the actions they have put off, in many cases still connected to redundancy unrelated to the health emergency and possibly before it. This will inevitably lead to a resumption of dismissal-related litigation that had remained dormant for a year at this point. Vice versa, an extension on the ban on dismissals would have to include renewal of the emergency social safety nets currently in place, with a connected further worsening of related government spending.
If the ban is not extended the companies which to date have been forced to maintain their employment levels will certainly take the actions they have put off, in many cases still connected to redundancy unrelated to the health emergency and possibly before it. This will inevitably lead to a resumption of dismissal-related litigation that had remained dormant for a year at this point. Vice versa, an extension on the ban on dismissals would have to include renewal of the emergency social safety nets currently in place, with a connected further worsening of related government spending.
Read more here.
