Charlie Chaplin in a still from Modern Times, 1936.
COVID-19 undoubtedly constitutes a shock event which involves all the countries of the world, imposing radical changes at various levels: first and foremost at social, organizational and institutional level.
Coronavirus has certainly accelerated some organizational change processes which has been resisted to various extents in the past, including some of a cultural nature.
In this period, in fact, agile working has spread rapidly. This flexible form of work organization recognizes autonomy for workers in the choice of spaces, hours and tools to use, in the face of greater responsibility for results. Italian Law no. 81 of 2017 governs its application, specifying that – if done properly – agile working enables an increase in productivity, an improvement in the conditions of physical and mental wellbeing and the reconciliation of time dedicated to personal life and to work. But this is neither obvious nor simple.
In the face of various advantages that can be associated with this form of work, there are also some negative aspects to be taken into consideration.
When companies lack adequate management policies, agile working can have negative psychological repercussions on employees since, if on one hand employees can organize their work with greater autonomy and flexibility, on the other, they risk feeling socially isolated and excluded from the dynamics of corporate life. This condition of professional isolation is often caused by the lack of effective corporate communications, as well as by the difficulty in recognizing the real contribution of the work carried out by employees in relation to managerial organizational objectives. All this regardless of potential conditions of functional illiteracy in the subjects involved or mobbing phenomena.
Nor can we neglect the intellectually demanding professions for which working from home involves a risk of work overload and stress, as it is not possible to define a physical and mental boundary between work and non-work.
So then, in order to create a good balance between work and family commitments, is agile working enough, is it suitable, is it appropriate? It depends.
It certainly depends on many factors, including the actual workload assigned.
Even in the presence of ‘family friendly’ policies, employees often find themselves having to read e-mails or clear backlogs in the evening or at night, making the benefits of agile working useless since the ‘always on’ work culture does not allow employees to draw a clear dividing line between professional commitments and family life, increasing the weight of commitments in an often unsustainable way (2020 Modern Families Index – UK research conducted by the Working Families and Bright Horizons charities).
