Smart working extended, Cefriel’s rules for working well

There is an extension to smart working. Indeed, there are two. One concerns the extension until August 31 of simplified smart working for the private sector, that is to say that those who work in a company are allowed to do it from home even in the absence of company agreements, therefore in simplified communication mode.

The other one extension concerns smart working until June 30 for fragile workers but also for parents of children with frailty. A measure that shows us how this modality is increasingly part of our lives.

The public debate on smart working. According to data from the Smart Working Observatory of the Politecnico di Milano, in the period of complete remote control, 28% suffered from technostress and 17% from over workingdemonstrating the fact that we cannot talk about smart working without having defined an organizational model and adequate policies that make it feasible and positive for all interested parties.

Life in the office serves to create culture, alignment and widespread coaching, but we must consider the fact that being able to work remotely guarantees flexibility and work-life balance. You can find a balance: the key to success is to define smart working projects designed on the needs of people, with a focus on achieving goals and balancing the different personal and business needs “- he explains Alfonso Fuggetta, CEO and scientific director of Cefriel.

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Cefriel, a digital innovation center founded by the Politecnico di Milano, which recalled “its” rules to guide the new, imminent, course of smart working, First of all it will be necessary to rethink the spaces, providing places for interactions and places of isolation. A possible evolution of the spaces in this sense will see the construction of design islands, in which people do not have an assigned desk, but gather around a project team.

At the same time it will be necessary to regulate working times, avoiding that smart working becomes remote work without time constraints. Valuable indications from this point of view are: avoid meetings between 13 and 14.30; avoid asking for the involvement of colleagues, barring unforeseen circumstances, outside working hours and on weekends; if mails are prepared within these time ranges, delay sending them.

Agile work does not mean solitary workfor this reason one of the priorities identified by Cefriel concerns precisely the value of relationships in the workplace that must be maintained even remotely.

Finally this new mode it requires a rethinking of leadership modelssmart working needs generative, empathic leadership that is attentive to people’s development and well-being.

A model to which we can refer is undoubtedly that of Blanchard’s Situational Leadership, inspired by a “contingent” and flexible style, which takes into account the differences between “inexperienced” and “mature” collaborators and between “Junior” and “Senior” and in which it is the leader who adapts his actions according to the level of maturity of those who follow him.

Working well, also through a correct approach to smart working, means knowing how to co-construct fluid ways of working and interacting, which change together with (and thanks to) people. It is certainly challenging, both for small businesses and for larger ones, but extremely productive and rewarding “, concludes Roberta Letorio, Chief Human Capital & Mobility Manager of Cefriel.