The terrible pandemic that affected the whole world has put us in front of new scenarios, also measuring our country in terms of innovation and technological development. Many companies have had to adopt measures of “smartworking”: an English term that does not mean working from home, but refers to a form of agile, smart work, a mode of execution of the employment relationship, characterized by the absence of hourly or spatial constraints and on the use of instrumentation that allows working remotely (such as: laptops, tablets and smartphones).
Are we ready for this new frontier?
The countless inconveniences that many have faced in the face of this new way of working are in most cases dictated by the fact that Italy has a predominantly manufacturing economic structure with a still very low level of digitization and robotization. A large part of the production fabric is made up of small and medium-sized enterprises, which are less inclined to invest in technologies that enable remote work to be optimized. These data become crucial in an overall view of the situation and penalize our country compared to others. According to a report by the European agency Eurofound, in 2018 just one in five Italians had worked at home in the past year, while elsewhere in Europe the ratio is one in three.
Where is the future?
Clearly, then, the coronavirus has catapulted us into a new reality that has been struggling to develop permanently for too long. In an effort to return to normalcy, it will be important to figure out how to work for the future, trying to define a new production paradigm. Entire supply chains will have to be rebuilt with new ways of working, robotics will become indispensable to ensure the business continuity of companies, and will take over in manufacturing, which will have to become increasingly competitive and automated. The challenge will not be easy, but it is not impossible.
