Smart working: what are the advantages and disadvantages?

More and more people are looking for job positions where the contractual conditions include: smart working (also called teleworking or remote working). In fact, many individuals say they feel better working without having to deal with daily traffic, being able to organize the day according to their own needs or those of their family members, or simply appreciate being able to work from holiday resorts or second homes rather than within large cities.

Smart working, also known as agile workis a way of working that allows workers to carry out their tasks outside the traditional boundaries of the company or office: it is a practice that has been part of our way of conceiving work for a few years now, but in Italy it has seen its maximum development during the COVID-19 pandemicwhen offices and other places in the city were difficult to frequent.

This way of organizing work is characterized, first of all, by theuse of digital technologies (PC, smartphone, etc.) that allow a constant and immediate connection with colleagues, clients, work documents, and secondly from the new way of thinking about tasks working: emphasis is placed on achievement of the desired results (monthly, weekly, project, turnover, etc.), rather than relying solely on working hours.

Those who practice agile working report deriving some significant benefits: companies often increase their productivity and reduce some operating costs, workers claim to enjoy better work-life balance and greater autonomy on their work; for the environment, there is a reduction of travel private individuals and therefore emissions. However, there are also some risks associated with cyber securityto thesocial isolation and the difficulty in separate work and private life.

The advantages of smart working

The practice of smart working, precisely because it is not limited solely to the “be able to work from home” but it also has to do with the way tasks are distributed, how results are monitored and the broad freedom to manage the work, it is most often seen as a tool of great importance by companies and workers. Among the advantages of agile working we find:

Companies

• Increased productivity: several studies show that smart workers tend to be more productive than those who work exclusively in the office, thanks to the possibility of managing their time more efficiently and working in environments that they consider more comfortable or in which they feel more at ease.
• Reduction of operating costs: With fewer people working on-site, companies can reduce expenses related to physical space, utilities and other logistical resources.

Workers

• Better work-life balance: smart working allows workers to better reconcile personal and professional commitments, reducing the stress associated with travel (for example, accompanying or picking up children from school) and allowing greater flexibility in managing their days (for example, to go to medical visits, go shopping, play sports, etc.).
• Greater autonomy and empowerment: working in smart mode allows employees to manage their work with greater autonomy, increasing the perception of their results and capabilities; there is a climate with less control and micro-management (i.e. that attitude with which one’s managers minutely observe every step we take at work).

Environment

• Reducing environmental impact: by practicing smart working, for example, fewer trips to work are needed by car, reducing pollution and greenhouse gas emissions.

The disadvantages of teleworking

Despite the many advantages reported by studies and surveys on agile work, we must not forget that this way of conceiving and organizing work can incur some risks. In particular, the disadvantages of smart working are:

Companies

• Cyber ​​Security: working remotely entails risks related to the protection of company data and general IT security (for example, connecting to public or unsecured wifi networks, or handling sensitive data in non-secluded places).
• Lack of adequate training for managers who are asked to assign tasks and objectives and monitor the results of their collaborators in a different way than in the past: they may be ineffective in allowing workers to manage themselves autonomously and effectively either due to a lack of adequate supervision and support, or due to the opposite excess, that is, a lack of trust and hyper-control.
• Reduction of innovation: The lack of face-to-face interactions and social relationships can reduce the effectiveness of teamwork, penalizing collaborative innovation.

Workers

• Social isolation: The lack of daily interactions with colleagues can make workers feel isolated, with impactful consequences on their psychological well-being.
• Difficulty in separating life and work: without a clear physical and temporal distinction between work and home life, employees may find themselves working longer hours than expected, increasing the risk of chronic work-related stress (burnout). This can be aggravated by the lack of distinction between the spaces of “private” life and “work” life, for example the table at which you have dinner with your family is the same one at which you were working until a few minutes before and so on.
• Excessive accountability: While autonomy is a major advantage and achievement for some, not all workers experience it the same way. For some, the lack of supervision and direct contact with colleagues can lead to feelings of isolation and performance anxiety. Additionally, increased responsibility can feel overwhelming, especially in already stressful or unsupportive work environments, increasing the risk of dissatisfaction and turnover (sudden job changes).

Environment

• Environmental impact: while on the one hand travel by car or other means of transport may decrease, with smart working there is a greater use of domestic energy resources such as internet, heating, air conditioning (paid by the worker) which can increase overall energy consumption. In this case we would have a shift and a fragmentation, but not the elimination, of the environmental impact.