Smart working has fueled an immaterial working sociality like a large social network

The Covid period has profoundly revolutionized the world of work, not only physically, with the massive adoption of smart working, but also mentally, with workers who continued to carry out their duties from home, in a sort of company distributed throughout the territory.

The technologies that made this possible had been in our possession for a long time, but very few used them, as happened during the pandemic, with offices generally closed or poorly manned, and the work that continued from individual homes.

The technological revolution of remote work would not have started so quickly and massively if we hadn't had to do it by force, thanks to a series of established habits that have always seen, as essential, the company sociality to produce and control the activities by the company chain.

The setting of the pre-covid work was, generally, different according to the size of the company, the greater its size and its internationalization and the easier it was used smart working, on the other hand, the smaller and more localized the activity and the less aptitude there was for working remotely.

With the pandemic effect there has been a reshuffling of business habits, with the transversal use of a work model not concentrated in the company but mainly from home.

The companies realized that, except in special cases, the activities could continue to be carried out without major problems, that the model of work relocation could have an effect positive on property management costs and that the volume of hours worked did not decrease, even without the physical control of the worker, but, in many cases, it increased.

The company collaborators, after an initial period of adjustment, have found a balance between the activities to be carried out and the home environment, finding in turn some advantages, also economic in this process, which concerned the economic savings on home-work trips, on clothing and sometimes on the costs of business lunches.

Over the months a working model has been created where sociability had been set aside, getting used to considering the hours worked only as a performance hourly in a company that had become immaterial.

At the end of the pandemic, many companies have kept the remote working model, while others have brought workers back to offices to resume activities in the presence.

Returning to the office was not a simple thing for everyone, as psychologically it was like starting a job in a new company, reconnecting relationships with colleagues, getting to know them of others and to deal with the character and psychological changes that the long work from home brought with it.

The sociability of the components of the offices is no longer the same as before, those mechanisms that existed for a certain time will not return quickly, thanks to safety factors that tend to isolate workers even within the offices.

Templates, dividers between workstations and desks, rotation of schedules, reduction of canteen activities or meetings in the lunch break, transport to and from the place of regulated work are the new barriers.

At times, a certain professional misanthropy has developed through the reduction of human contacts in the office, the minimization of visits to customers or suppliers, preferring video conferences and a certain underlying distrust of activities that involve the presence of other people in your safety area.

This mix made up of physical and psychological safety measures will need an average long time to be resolved, because collaborators who suffer from forms of work misanthropy, live a stress in enduring the proximity of other people and the idea of resuming work activities that involve gatherings or business trips, boarding airplanes, trains, going to hotels and restaurants.

It is important to understand those who suffer from these problems to try to solve the useless direct business contacts, which were used in the past, through the use of new communication technologies .

But it is also important to recreate a working sociality, when necessary, also psychologically helping those who find it harder to accept common places and moments of work.

Automatic translation. We apologize for any inaccuracies. Original article in Italian.

Photo:

The Misantropo

Painting by Pietrel Bruegel the elder

Tempera on canvas cm. 86x85

Capodimonte Museum Naples