South working: the smart working 2.0
With the advent of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, the work scenario of many companies has had to change: due to the inability to physically reach offices, in fact, we have seen a massive increase in smart workers. As the months went by, it then developed another interesting trend, a kind of “smart working 2.0”: the south working.
A new way of experiencing work
With the term south working refers to the possibility for workers to practice their profession from a different location than that of the employer or company, and, in particular, from areas in southern Italy.
This new way of experiencing work has been pleasantly received by both companies and employees. In fact, the smart working in its most generic sense, brings to companies of the great advantages, including the reduced costs for maintaining offices andincreased productivity. The agile working then has just as many benefits for workers, who save in terms of time and money for home-office travel and who are able to better manage the work-life balance.
It is therefore not surprising that the 2.0 version of the smart working is being received on the same positive note: many companies in Italy are showing an interested in the phenomenon and are proving to be inclined to open business hubs from the South.
The concept of the south working in fact sees a further evolution than simply working from home: it involves the actual opening of spaces of co-working or offices ready to accommodate workers based on their home city.
Again, the benefits are multiple, both from the point of view of the worker, who may decide to work from their own places of the heart, but especially from the point of view of territory: the south working would return, in fact, to cities in the south, all those “brains” that have been forced to move to the center-north to seek expertise and university infrastructure To invest in their own education. The phenomenon would also counteract the depopulation that areas in the South are experiencing due to internal migration flows closely linked to skilled labor.
A project made in Sicily
The issue of south working is particularly felt in the skin of people who would like to move back to their home territory. Therefore, one cannot avoid mentioning the South Working® Association – Working from the South, born in Palermo 2020. The goal that the project brings forward is to “Bridging the economic, social and territorial gap between North and South, between industrialized and marginalized areas of the country, through a process of reactivation of traditionally peripheral territories.”
Thanks to the studies conducted in recent years, the Association has outlined the essential elements that would make possible and smart the work from the South: thedigital infrastructure, to have enough connection to work efficiently; themobility infrastructure, to make places reachable in a maximum of two hours’ travel time; and thesocial infrastructure, lest we forget the importance of interactions among colleagues.
Based precisely on this, the organization aims to promote, rather than work from home, the emergence of new spaces for experiencing work and who knows, to attract talent from all parts of the world, driven perhaps by the desire to work a stone’s throw from the sea.
The spread of smart working and the new trend of south working are having and will continue to have benefits socially, economically and environmentally: reducing costs, bringing people closer to areas of Italy that are now peripheral and upgrading them make this new way of experiencing work truly smart, for all parties.
by Beatrice Saura