Meridiana. 104, 2022. Smart working

Testata: Meridiana • Anno di pubblicazione: 2022
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pp. 268, ISBN: 9791254692288
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Le restrizioni messe in atto per arginare il contagio da Covid-19 hanno costretto le imprese a ricorrere in modo massiccio al lavoro da remoto, producendo cambiamenti imponenti nelle esperienze di milioni di persone. I contributi raccolti in questo numero analizzano l’introduzione del lavoro da remoto durante la pandemia, mettendo a fuoco uno snodo cruciale nell’evoluzione delle relazioni di impiego. La riflessione si muove su piani e discipline diverse – sociologia, storia, diritto, psicologia – e vuole andare oltre l’analisi della contingenza relativa all’emergenza pandemica, mettendo a confronto lo «smart working emergenziale» sia con il lavoro domestico del passato, sia con il lavoro agile nella sua versione «fisiologica». I temi toccati dal numero sono molti. Da un punto di vista giuridico, il venir meno dell’obbligo di recarsi sul luogo di lavoro scardina di fatto la tradizionale regolazione del lavoro subordinato basata sul tempo e sullo spazio. Le ricerche empiriche tuttavia sottolineano che, nel periodo emergenziale, questo non si traduce necessariamente in una maggiore autonomia del lavoratore. Per quanto riguarda lo spazio, i vincoli alla mobilità trasformano di fatto il lavoro agile in lavoro a domicilio (con interessanti assonanze con quanto avveniva in passato in comparti come il tessile o il calzaturiero): la libertà di decidere dove lavorare trasmette un senso di maggiore comodità (si può persino «lavorare sul divano»), ma l’assenza di standard ergonomici per le postazioni rischia di ripercuotersi sulla salute dei lavoratori. Anche la gestione individuale dei tempi di lavoro, sebbene permetta di limitare gli spostamenti e consenta maggiore autonomia e libertà, espone al rischio diffuso di overwork, a causa della porosità tra i momenti dedicati al lavoro retribuito e quelli dedicati allo svago o ai compiti di cura. La questione dei tempi di lavoro si riconnette in modo forte con quella della conciliazione, che vede nel periodo pandemico un momento di particolare tensione, anche a causa della chiusura temporanea delle scuole. Le analisi sottolineano come i compiti di cura siano ricaduti prevalentemente sulle donne, sebbene gli uomini se ne siano sentiti sovraccaricati. Rispetto alla portata dei cambiamenti introdotti, l’organizzazione del lavoro sembra essersi modificata in modo meno radicale del previsto. In ambiti ad alta burocratizzazione come la scuola si impara a snellire alcune procedure e a rimettere a fuoco gli obiettivi, ma più in generale le ricerche delineano una polarizzazione negli effetti delle nuove tecnologie: il controllo esercitato dagli strumenti digitali è più stringente per le professioni poco qualificate, mentre in quelle più qualificate emergono il controllo orizzontale dei colleghi e quello autoimposto sulla base dell’etica professionale. Ma questi sono solo alcuni dei cambiamenti nelle relazioni di lavoro: il lavoro da remoto annulla l’interazione reiterata e prolungata nel tempo con i colleghi e con i superiori, incrinando i meccanismi tradizionali di costruzione di legami fiduciari che sono preziosi per le organizzazioni, non solo perché consentono di ridurre il controllo normativo, ma anche perché rendono fluide le relazioni e la comunicazione, supportando la creatività e i processi innovativi.

Il lavoro da remoto tra terziarizzazione, digitalizzazione e trasformazioni delle relazioni di impiego
Sonia Bertolini, Giovanna Fullin, Valentina Pacetti,

Remote Work between Tertiarization, Digitalization and Transformation of Employment Relations

The Covid pandemic forced companies to use remote work. Even in Italy, where remote work had been scarcely used, its diffusion was fast and wide. We argue that its success resides in the fact that it relies on some important trends already underway. Firstly, the pandemic in Europe hits a high tertiaried society. The intensive use of remote work would not have been possible in a predominantly manufacturing context, where most of the activities require the workers’ presence. Secondly, the digitalization process had been underway for decades, and companies already had the communication technologies essential for managing remote work. Thirdly, the remote work exacerbates the ongoing process of flexibilization of employment relations in terms of spaces/times of work.

Keywords: Remote Work; Tertiarisation; Digitalization; Flexibilisation


Lavoro agile e smart working emergenziale: gemelli diversi
Anna Fenoglio

Agile Work and Emergency Smart Work: Different Twins

In the emergency situation due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the Government used the regulatory scheme of agile work to ensure the continuation of work activities while safeguarding health protection. However, the tool applied in the emergency phase differs from the one gov- erned by Law No. 81/2017 in very relevant aspects. The essay aims to analyze similarities and differences between the various models of remote work, highlighting in particular, the typical and innovative features of agile work and the differences with smart work in emergency. The article also focuses on the most recent innovations made to address the main issues that have emerged from the experience of the past two years, in view of the gradual return to normality.

Keywords: Smart Work; Agile Work; Working Time; Right to Disconnect


Tecnologia e controllo nel lavoro da remoto
Valentina Goglio, Valentina Pacetti

Technology and Control in Remote Work

The normalization of ICT and digital technologies had an unprecedented acceleration during the Covid-19 pandemic, especially in Italy, where remote working was used massively for the first time. This article investigates to what extent the rapid and extensive integration of digital technologies in the everyday work practices may have generated an increase in the level of control on employees and whether some of these trends may become structural in the long run. Using quali-quanti material collected in Italy in April 2020-June 2021, the study describes the experience of white-collar workers, with a focus on the role of digital technologies in the transformation of work.

Keywords: Digital Technologies; Control; Remote Work; Technology


«Il mio ufficio è il mio divano». Spazi, strumenti e tempi del lavoro da remoto
Davide Azzolari, Giovanna Fullin

«My Office Is My Couch». Spaces, Instruments and Times of Working from Home

With the Covid-19 pandemic the use of remote working strongly increased and the experimentation of this working arrangement is expected to bring about changes destined to last over time. This article investigates potentialities and limits of remote working by analyzing workers’ experiences (through a survey and in-depth interviews). It explores the autonomy in the management of working time and the strategies adopted to prevent the latter from invading free time. As regards spaces and work instruments, the analysis highlights a misalignment between the perception of «comfort» of some solutions adopted by remote workers, and their adequacy from the point of view of workers’ physical well-being.

Keywords: Remote working; Pandemic; Ergonomic; Working time


Distanziamenti e capitale sociale in smart working
Sonia Bertolini, Simone Tosi

Distancing and Social Capital in Smart Working

During the lockdown, workers and firms faced the challenge of a sudden and prompt reorganization in order to carry on production activities. In this article we focus on changes that have taken place at the level of social interactions. We will deal with how personal and professional relationships, which have been largely mediated by extensive use of platforms for remote interaction, have been changing, and how these transformations have impacted work organization, worker satisfaction, and operational efficiency. These are issues that, in early re- search, emerged as specifically relevant and complex. In the conclusions, we will try to assess how skills acquired in the remote work of the emergency period can be «systematized» and capitalized on to rethink production in the return to «normalcy» and, on the other hand, what cautions should be considered in the future setup.

Keywords: Social Capital; Trust; Professional Relationships; Creativity; Informal Interactions


Tutt3 casa e lavoro. Smart working in emergenza e conciliazione
Valentina Goglio, Marinella Vercelli

«All Work and No Play»: Work from Home and Work-Family Balance During the Pandemic

The issue of reconciliation between the different spheres of work and private life emerged strongly in the context of remote work experienced during the pandemic emergency, especially for workers with children. The article aims to investigate to what extent the flexibility offered by remote work can represent an opportunity and how much it opens up to new or old forms of disadvantages. Based on a survey and semi-structured interviews collected between April 2020 and March 2021, the study highlights how flexibility provided by remote work can be an opportunity to be seized but also a risk to be managed, and that only under certain conditions it can contribute to work-life balance objectives.

Keywords: Work from Home; Work-Life Balance; Covid-19


Smart working e lavoro da remoto obbligatorio emergenziale. Due studi psico-sociali longitudinali
Chiara Ghislieri, Monica Molino

Remote working and emergency mandatory work-from-home. Two psycho-social longitudinal studies

The article proposes a critical reflection on the differences between pre-pandemic remote working and mandatory work-from-home during the Covid-19 pandemic. We used self-report instruments to detect emotional exhaustion, frequency of technology use, and two recovery experiences (mastery and control) 6 months apart in two longitudinal studies. The first study involved 148 technical-administrative employees of the University of Turin in 2019, and the second study involved a sample of 144 workers during the first lockdown in 2020. Although the two studies are not directly comparable, some differences in quality of life emerged that could be useful for the future of remote working.

Keywords: Covid-19 emergency; Work-family conflict; Remote working; Recovery


Lezioni dal Covid-19: il lavoro degli insegnanti tra autonomia estrema e nuove collegialità
Gianluca Argentin, Mariagrazia Santagati, Gianluca Truscello

Lessons from Covid-19: Teachers’ Work between Extreme Autonomy and New Forms of Collegiality

Due to the unexpected pandemic crisis, teachers were forced to face the challenges imposed by social distancing. Within a few weeks of the national closure of the schools, Distance Learning (DL) was activated to guarantee school service continuity. The article reconstructs – through qualitative empirical material – how teachers handled DL and how they defined its heterogeneous forms in each school. In this article, it is shown how the sudden translation of school into the digital world took place. We focus on the interplay of teachers’ autonomy and collegiality, trying to throw light on how heterogeneous solutions to the pandemic, based on remote working, emerged within Italian schools.

Keywords: Distance Learning; Remote Working; Pandemic; Teachers


Dal lavoro a domicilio allo smart working: continuità e discontinuità in una prospettiva storica e di genere
Eloisa Betti

From Industrial Home Work to Smart Working: Continuities and Changes in a Gender Historical Perspective

Home-base work, namely «smart working» and «telework» in Italian 2020 public debate, is not a new phenomenon in the history of the Italian Republic. Thanks to industrial home workers’ voices, the path of industrial home work in the Fordist period could represent an interesting term of comparison to understand gender relationships in contemporary home- based work, the complex interaction between productive and reproductive labour inside the home, the mental and physical condition of home-based workers, the possible level of exploitation, the lack of socialization and sociability and the potential role of trade unions.

Keywords: Industrial Home Work; Smart Working; Gender; Home


Gli ascari e la loro memoria: due traiettorie di vita tra Libia e Italia
Antonio M. Morone,

Ascari’s Memories: Two Life Stories Between Libya and Italy

After the defeat of the Italian troops in Africa during the Second World War, the ascari (the African soldiers enlisted in the colonial army) were losing their role of intermediaries of Italian rule. The public memory of the ascari was discarded by the Italians and at the same time by the upcoming national ruling class in the former colonies. The two ascari’s life stories discussed in this paper offer an overview of some different strategies of intermediation with the colonial power. In both stories, the centrality of the relationship with Italy and the Italians emerges in an important way, but along a process of reciprocal negotiation and not only mere subordination.

Keywords: Ascari; Migration; Republican Colonialism; Agency


L’antimafia a scuola. Una ricerca di didattica della storia
Andrea Miccichè

Anti-mafia at school. A search for the didactics of history This research examined the didactic products produced by various primary schools. These works were analysed in order to understand whether they referred to the methods of the didac- tics of history. In general, the analysis of this production has brought out clearly the absence of historical narratives and historiographic references, in favour, instead, of an absolute centrality of memory, fully identified with the knowledge of the past, and with the reaffirmation of a victim paradigm, consistent with a public discourse that attributes a central role to witnesses and victims. A scholastic dimension of the anti-mafia, therefore, which seems to develop without reference to the methods of the didactics of history, revealing the intrinsic weakness of this discipline. Keywords: Antimafia; History; Memory; Didactics