Mobile-Working and the End of the State of Emergency in Italy: Written Agreement Requirement as of 1 April 2022

published on 8 March 2022 | reading time approx. 2 minutes

Two years after the Prime Minister Decrees of March 2020, which allowed the so-called “simplified mobile-working”, with the end of the state of emergency scheduled for March 31, 2022, the time has come to question the future of this way of working, the opportunity and the conditions of its use beyond the emergency, in the light of a “new normality”.

Indeed, as of 1 April 2022, the regulations contained in Law no. 81/2017, as integrated by the National Protocol on Mobile-Working issued by the Ministry of Labor in December 2021, will come back into force. Therefore, each employer who intends to allow its employees to continue to work remotely (even for a few days a week or a month) will necessarily have to enter into a written agreement (individual or collective, fixed-term or open-ended) with them, which will have to regulate several aspects, including:

• how work shall be performed off company premises, including the alternation between periods of work on and off company premises;
• rest periods;
• technical and organizational measures to ensure disconnection from work tools;
• regulation regarding work equipment;
• how the employer may exercise his supervisory and control powers;
• conducts that may lead to disciplinary sanctions;
• training activities that may be necessary for the performance of work remotely;
• occupational health and safety regulations;
• forms and methods of exercising trade unions rights.

The mentioned written agreement, which will have to be submitted in advance to the Ministry of Labour via a specific web platform, will have to be designed taking into account various aspects, also relating to company organization, the protection of personal data and the security of company systems and information.

In the absence of such an agreement, from 1 April 2022 it will no longer be possible to allow the employees to continue to carry out their work activities remotely. Indeed, without the agreement, the employer will not be able to rely on the I.N.A.I.L. Insurance, guaranteed to mobile employees by Law no. 81/2017 in case of accidents or occupational diseases, with the risk of being held civilly and criminally liable for any damages suffered by the employees, nor will it be able to take advantage of the economic incentives that will be introduced in case of regulation of mobile working through collective agreements at company's level.

In addition to the obligation to enter into such a written agreement, the National Protocol also provides for special training obligations aimed at increasing specific technical, organizational and digital skills of mobile-working employees, for the implementation of which it will be necessary to devise specific training programs.