The flexible work revolution that began in the year of the pandemic could become the norm. And not just in line with an amendment to the Budget Law, introduced in recent weeks by the Italian brothers, which provides for the maintenance of smart work throughout 2023 for vulnerable workers and parents with children under 14. And also for the new initiative of Intesa Sanpaolo, which intends to open a new approach to remote work in our country. According to an experiment in the United Kingdom, where since June 70 companies have switched to 4 day work weekwith completely satisfactory results, the Italian banking institution also intends to give place to this initiative by allowing its employees to use smart work up to 120 days a year of their choice and a short 4-day week with 9 working hours for equal. to pay.
Seven years after the success of the first experiments in Iceland, which in 2015 was the first to choose to reduce working hours at the same salary, Italy is also adopting a change in strategy to be more attractive and meet the needs of employees. who can better combine professional and personal life. Or at least is trying an Italian bank that, starting in January, will enable those of its 74,000 employees who wish to take advantage of flexible work for 4 months of their choice.. It will also be possible to access a 4-day work week for equal pay.
As presented, this would seem to be a real turning point for the Italian world of work, were it not for the 9 hours per day clause. This means, as the workers immediately noticed, that we are not talking about a real reduction in working time, but about its redistribution. This explains why wages remain unchanged, not because of a surge in generosity on the part of the company, but because of the simple fact that the number of hours is the same.
The organizational changes introduced by Intesa Sanpaolo will not be implemented with the consent of the unions, which, according to IlSole24Ore, did not recognize a number of guarantees for workers, such as the definition of “technical means to actually disconnect in the workplace.” end of working hours”, increase in the cost of the food stamp, recognition of the “full meal ticket for smart work days”, “reimbursement of electricity and connection costs, as well as a contribution to the installation of a workstation work”.
The one presented by Intesa, an alternative model where hours from five days are concentrated into four without effective reduction in workload and without a number of guaranteesto. This kind of model, an alternative to the 100:80:100 model, which provides for 100% pay with up to 80% reduction in expected working hours, committing to maintain 100% productivity, is already being rolled out in Belgium and Japan, one of the countries with the highest number of deaths. from overwork. In the case of Sweden, the opposite is true: companies have reduced working hours due to lower wages: an initiative that, unsurprisingly, has generated controversy.
Source: Elle