Smart Working and ‘Short Weeks’ Are Here to Stay in Italy

According to the Osservatorio Smart Working of Politecnico di Milano (the ‘Osservatorio’), smart or agile working can be defined as, “a managerial philosophy based on giving people back flexibility and autonomy in choosing the spaces, times and tools to use in exchange for greater responsibility for results”. In this sense, it encompasses the various types of flexible working arrangements that we have become accustomed to (e.g. remote work).

This organisational model has brought significant benefits to companies in terms of improved productivity, reduced absenteeism and reduced costs for physical spaces, as well as resulting in greater satisfaction for workers who enjoy higher levels of physical, psychological and relational well-being when compared to employees who do not ‘agile/smart’ work.

As is demonstrated by a recent 2024 study conducted by the Osservatorio, smart working in Italy is far from declining. This is despite the fact that at the end of March 2024, the obligation for employers to allow smart working for specific categories, such as workers with children under 14 and “vulnerable” workers, ceased to exist. This obligation was introduced during COVID.

So in which direction are organisations in Italy going when it comes to smart working? As we explore below, different trends appear to emerge depending on whether we are talking about large companies, SMEs or public administrations. Further, and in recent times, discussions about work flexibility also involves the evaluation of other tools, such as the so called ‘short week’.

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Smart working (or agile work) is regulated under Italian law and by the National Protocol of 7 December 2021 which sets out the guidelines for collective bargaining in this area.

Smart working arrangements can be agreed between the parties. These arrangements typically have the following hallmarks, namely:

• the absence of a fixed location with the performance of the work conducted both on and outside of the company’s premises;

• the absence of specific time constraints, without prejudice to the limits on the maximum duration of daily and weekly working hours (as per Italian law and the relevant collective bargaining agreements);

• the performance of work with the possible use of technological tools and possible recourse to organisation by phases, cycles and objectives.

Therefore, to adopt smart working an employer must:

• enter into a written agreement with the employee that regulates the performance of the work performed outside the company premises, the exercise of the employer’s management and control and the tools that will be used by the worker. The agreement – which may be for a fixed or indefinite period – must also identify the worker’s rest periods as well as the technical and organisational measures necessary to ensure disconnection from their technological equipment;

• deliver to the worker and to the workers’ safety representative, at least once a year, a written information document which identifies the general risks and specific risks connected to the particular way in which the employment relationship is carried out;

• communicate electronically to the Ministry of Labour the names of the workers and the start and end date of the smart working, within five days from the start date of the period or within five days following the date on which the event modifying the duration or termination of the smart working period occurs (this deadline for mandatory communications was introduced into Italian law in December 2024, and is also known as Nuovo Collegato Lavoro).

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According to the study conducted by the Osservatorio, the number of remote workers in 2024 was substantially stable: 3.55 million compared to 3.58 million in 2023.

More specifically, the study shows that smart working:

• is growing in large companies, where it involves almost two million workers (an increase of 1.6% on 2023);

• is decreasing when it comes to SMEs, going from 570,000 workers in 2023 to 520,000; and

• remains substantially stable when it comes to micro-enterprises (625,000 in 2024, compared to 620,000 in 2023) and in public administrations (500,000 in 2024, compared to 515,000 in 2023).

For 2025, a growth of 5% is expected, the equivalent of an additional 3.75 million workers. This will mainly concern large companies (35%), followed by public administrations (23%) and then SMEs (9%).

How should this data be interpreted? In smaller companies, the end of the obligation to work from home for some categories of employees has brought many workers back to the office since agile work is still perceived as an occasional organisational model and not as a stable feature in the organisation of work.

There are, however, other forms of flexibility that companies can experiment with, such as the so called ‘short week’.

The short week is a reorganisation of working hours which generally occurs according to two models:

• A compressed work week in which the hours worked per week and the pay remain unchanged, but the working hours are rearranged so that the worker enjoys a half day or a day off per week;

• A short work week which provides for a reduction in the number of working hours per day or the number of working days per week without any change in pay.

This form of flexibility allows for an improved work-life balance, increased job satisfaction and attractiveness on the job market. It can therefore be an effective tool for attracting and retaining highly qualified professional talent.

The short week can also be adopted to compensate for the return to the office of workers in companies that have opted to move beyond smart working. Not only that. It can also help reduce the gap between workers who perform tasks that can be done remotely and who, therefore, have access to smart working, and other categories of employees, who are required to be present and to respect a more regimented working schedule. In this way, everyone can experience some form of flexibility.

There is no regulation of the short week yet, but several legislative proposals have been presented that promote new forms of work arrangements, likely to represent the future of sustainable productivity from an ESG perspective.

In particular, a proposal was presented in Italy last October which contains provisions to encourage collective agreements aimed at reducing working hours.

The bill highlights how shorter working days for men and women and the wider adoption of a different concept of work can better achieve gender balance, through greater assumption of work responsibilities by women and, vice versa, family responsibilities by men. Furthermore, the reduction of working hours also means a reduction of the environmental impact of work due to unsustainable consumption (think of packaged foods and ready meals) and CO2 emissions related to commuter travel.

The text currently under discussion in the Chamber:

• promotes the signing of national, territorial and company collective agreements ”aimed at defining organisational models that involve a progressive reduction in normal working hours up to 32 hours per week, with the same salary, also in the form of shifts distributed over four days per week”;

• provides, in the first three years after its entry into force, an exemption from the payment of social security contributions by employers, with reference to employment relationships, to which the collective agreements referred to in the previous point apply;

• increases the allocation of the New Skills Fund to support the signing of collective agreements that provide for a reduction in working hours for the same salary.

In fact, to access the New Skills Fund, employers are already required to sign collective agreements to remodel working hours, indicating the target skills, the number of workers involved, the number of hours allocated to training and the paths for verifying the skills acquired. This is a strategic opportunity for companies that, by adjusting working hours, can invest in employee training in areas such as digital and ecological transition, strengthening competitiveness in the market and motivating staff.

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Smart working and the short week represent organisational models oriented towards work flexibility. They are capable of producing positive effects on individuals, organisations and wider-society.

As the study from the Osservatorio demonstrates, smart working in particular is still popular across Italy, in both the public and private sector. There is also a possibility that with the new legislative proposals, shorter working weeks will become more prevalent in Italian working life.