Law no. 81 of 22 May 2017 introduces an innovative kind of employment in Italy, both for a limited and/or unlimited period of time, aimed on the one hand at increasing business competitiveness and on the other at facilitating the work/life balance of the single employee: the s.c. smart working.
Through a specific agreement (not replacing the normal employment contract) ‒ which must be communicated by the employer to the Direzione Territoriale del Lavoro (the Labour Department) ‒ the parties can agree on the performance of the activities eliminating the obligations and restrictions which are typical of work under employment contracts, thus not indicating a place of work or working hours in which the work must be performed, with the only persistence of the maximum limit solely directed at safeguarding the employee’s psychophysical integrity.
The employee acquires an autonomy which allows him/her to be free to self-determine the place and time of work, abandoning the logic of the employee who is detached from the corporate interest and hence seeing the employment contract from a different perspective, more oriented to the importance of the “result” and of the performance achieved by the collaborator rather than exclusively counting the actual working hours.
Therefore, it is easy to understand the reasons which have led the Legislator to include such regime in the “Jobs Act of self-employed workers”, placing the two apparently different worlds side by side, and grasping the most efficient and exportable aspects of self-employment, though keeping the safeguards typical of work under an employment contract.
(Milan Office – Marcello Giordani – 0039 (0)2 39680538)
