Smart working bonus, just a step towards then

How to regulate smart working in the era of the "New normal"? How to better define employment relationships when the pandemic is over and it will be necessary to reflect on smart working as a new integrated mode of collaboration? The reflection will have to contemplate all the parties involved: the worker, who risks losing on the street a series of benefits that were previously used to supplement the monthly salary; the company, which must base the employment relationships on new hinges that are not limited to the hourly calculation of the presence of the single operator; the State, which in this phase of transition will have to understand which modality to stimulate and which to limit, so that everything can also be traced back more generally to a more farsighted and efficient labor policy.

hypothesis, the idea of ​​a "Smart working bonus" has also sprung up, which should on the one hand allow companies to venture more easily into this change, and on the other ensure that workers do not have to deal with sudden disappearance of meal vouchers and overtime hours (fundamental elements for replenishing salaries in the recent past). How to manage it?

Smart working bonus

To date, everything can be traced back to mere hypotheses, often thrown on the table in order to collect the first feedback and feel the pulse of citizens (and, in this case , trade unions). The details will make the difference, but for the moment, flat-rate reimbursements are hypothesized for home workers, so that they can more than compensate the expenses incurred at their home (for example on bills) and thus can find themselves with stable salaries, but with expenses reduced housewives. In Germany the hypothesis is similar, imagined in a flat-rate formula in the order of 5 euros per day. This would have a more immediate impact on the wallet, bypassing the traditional institution of meal vouchers and probably reshuffling the cards at all those brokerage companies that currently managed corporate welfare with their own services.

The problem is not of immediate urgency because the statistics suggest the fact that the removal of restrictions on work will not disappear for a few months: the fears of a third wave are in no way dispelled and one cannot imagine a return to full normality until after the first half of the year. However, the reflections on smart working must necessarily go beyond the emergency, since it is now clear that, if the necessary balances are found, it will be possible to imagine a new regime with smart working organically included in the corporate strategies for companies of every sector and dimension.

The challenge, both political and trade union, lies in accepting the sudden change that has taken place: opposing resistance will not be able to produce results that are not detrimental to the entire work ecosystem. Among the links of all this, however, there remains a further problem that only real intervention policies (and not just improvised bonuses) can solve: the proliferation of VAT numbers created to facilitate smart working where previously the regulation was limiting, risks penalizing a time again this type of workers. It only comes out with a much broader revision of labor policies, a real leap from the too many anachronistic discussions of past years. Any bonus whatsoever will be useful in guiding the transition by absorbing shocks and friction between the parties, but it cannot remain in the order of things for long: it would be a sign of political inertia and lack of vision, which would risk paying dearly in perspective. br>