This time it’s up to Zurich Italia. And so also the insurance sector (after Axa and Sara) has chosen the mobile work. The aim, which unions and company are working to, is to grant smart working voluntary access to employees; this would allow employees to choose work place and flexible working hours, in accordance to what will be defined by an agreement between the parties.
Oliviero Bernardi, head of hr Zurich Italy, has explained that these reflections come after at least a couple of years of dialogue, ideas, proposals. The goal is to improve the corporate organization to “let people work well on the content not on the hours.” While on the one hand this will result in fewer meetings, more powers and a high level of responsibility, on the other it will also imply for the company to provide employees with all kinds of digital, modern and updated instrumentation.
Before thinking in large numbers, Zurich Italy has been experimenting smart working on 100 people for six months. It went well, a reduction in absenteeism and increased productivity were detected. The conditions, therefore, are not lacking and suggesting important and beneficial changes for employees, on the one hand, and for the company, on the other. In first place, then, the working people, that feeling more rewarding and more ‘free’, enhance the productivity; but the leaders are to be working more on quality, expertise and also on trust; It is no longer a question of ‘hours and quantity’.
The way (even by the public opinion) towards the mobile work is still long, but in the meantime the first feedback (positive) from trade unions is arriving. Is this the beginning of an important and new revolution?