According to the Observatory Research Smart Working of the School of Management of Politecnico of Milan during the 2015 the 17% of Italian big companies has already launched smart working projects. What in the United States has become an established working method in Italy is still a new approach that makes collaborators and employees free of place and time constraints, allowing them to manage their responsibilities in an autonomous way: where, when and how they want to.
While digital tools, leaner organizational policies, unusual managerial behaviours and new physical layout of the spaces are making their way, the new concepts of working area are spreading more and more. An example of that is the co-working spaces, of which about 349 already exist in Italy, 88 just in Milan: structures offering flexible places on demand and a smart work experience, by targeting now not only freelancers, start-up and micro-enterprises, but also bigger companies, in which the 71% of managers consider them also an opportunity for structured organizations.
For more structured and bigger companies, it’s also a resource the business centre offering temporary offices (a day or for longer periods), they are ideal even for multinationals needing different location worldwide and that are always looking for more and more flexible working solutions.
To date, however, only the 36% of the companies offering the chance to work out of station identifies these areas as one of the possible alternatives. The main barriers relate to the fear on corporate data security (identified by 58% of respondents), as not all organizations are today sufficiently mature to ensure the working out of the office with access to corporate data in confidentiality and integrity security.
The 59% of managers expects from these smart terminals benefits related to an exchange of knowledge among those using this working modalities, but it’s also relevant the reduction of the sense of isolation due to an excessive use of home working.
The far more widespread instruments among Italian companies, which have introduced some initiatives of smart working, are the mobile devices and social collaboration (social networks, forums / blogs, chat systems or instant messaging, web conferencing, systems document sharing), already enabled by the 77% of big companies and 34% of SMEs.
According to Mariano Corso, Scientific Director of the Osservatorio Smart Working, “making Smart Working is a very long and deep evolving. It means going beyond the introduction of individual instruments and creating results-oriented organization, founded on trust, accountability, flexibility and collaboration. “