Italy is approaching phase 2 of the management of the coronavirus emergency. That of reopening and the gradual return to work for millions of citizens. On May 4, 4,5 million workers will leave their homes and go to factories, offices, bars and restaurants to manage take-out (the reopening to the public for these two sectors will only take place in the coming weeks).
Work management during the emergency, but also in the post-coronavirus phase will be essential both to try to restart the economy and to avoid a resurgence of infections which, in addition to plunging the country back into the abyss from a health point of view, it could be fatal from the economic one.
Based on the experience gained by thousands of personnel managers, the Aidp (National Association of Personnel Managers) has drawn up 5 guidelines to be followed for managing work in phase two of the coronavirus emergency, containing advice aimed at businesses and to workers to deal with the effects that the pandemic is having and will continue to have on the world of work.
"Since the first days of the coronavirus emergency, personnel managers have had to deal with an unprecedented impact on work organization - explains Isabella Covili Faggioli, President of Aidp -. In a few days we have revolutionized the world of work and working methods by promoting the large-scale spread of remote working which in most cases has been improperly defined as smart working. These intense and extraordinary weeks have gained a wealth of experience of great value which at this point we intend to make available to the country".
So here are the Aidp guidelines for the post-coronavirus.
RULE N.1: SMART WORKING
Smart working will have to become the beacon in the post-coronavirus job market. Attention because what companies have to do is develop a real smart working model. What has been done so far in the vast majority of cases has in fact only been "home working", useful, but very different from the more innovative "colleague". “It is necessary to provide for strong incentives from the State on an economic and regulatory level that reward companies that are virtuous in this sense as well as those that encourage forms of solidarity even among workers. Agile working correctly understood, then, allows for a virtuous synthesis of work-life balance times”, suggests the Aidp.
RULE N.2: WORK SAFELY
The second suggestion from Aidp concerns the concrete management of work to allow everyone to work in safety. From this point of view, the personnel directors insist on the need to "remodulate work shifts on different time slots from the canonical 8 hours in purely productive environments, diluting the activities even over 6 days a week and reducing the levels of simultaneous presence in the companies ”. It is necessary to establish differentiated timetables and entry/exit flexibility in order to allow social distancing between workers. Not only that, among the various proposals there is also that of using Apps that inform employees of how many people are in the office, giving indications of entry times spaced out to avoid crowding at the entrance.
RULE N.3: SIMPLIFICATION OF PROCEDURES
"Encourage the use of technologies to streamline work procedures and bureaucracy”. This is one of the cornerstones on which to implant the new strategies according to the Aidp. “Employers must put the health of their employees, contractors and customers first by finding a balance to access personal data for superior purposes while ensuring confidentiality and ethics in handling information. Simplification of procedures for accessing social safety nets, especially in times of emergency”, reads the report.
RULE N.4: INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS
We must prevent the coronavirus emergency from exacerbating the distances and frictions between the various subjects in the field. On the contrary, the participation of workers in company management must be encouraged, establishing a dialogue carried out by "actors open to change and who are ready to redefine the rules of the game in a negotiating but integrative way".
RULE N.5 FLEXIBILITY AND TERM CONTRACTS
According to the personnel directors, an important node is that relating to the proposal to favor greater flexibility of the new contractual models so that they are "able to consider territorial contractual proximity and adequate bargaining to support employment levels in the medium term".
“In Italy, in recent years, vouchers have been abolished, traceable forms of payment for many temporary jobs, action has been taken to make it difficult to resort to fixed-term contracts, so that today there are fewer tools for quality work in the crisis and for the post-crisis”, accuses the AIDP which asks to “remove the a-causality from all fixed-term contracts and return to the previous management of the dignity decree”.
