Milan’s public transport system is almost deserted and its streets are as quiet as during the holiday month of August; in short the city is just about as far from its usual bustling frenzy as is possible to imagine. Measures being implemented to contain the Covid-19 coronavirus outbreak in the Lombardy region of the country are making life challenging for the region’s businesses. While all business activity is halted in the designated ‘red zones’ (virus cluster areas comprising 10 town-lands in the Lombardy region as well as Venice, and are areas that do not allow any entries or exits), companies located in the ‘yellow zones’ (not particularly safe areas where caution is recommended) and in particular in Milan are looking at ways of maintaining production while safeguarding employee health. One way is via smart-working, whereby employees work from their own homes.
“Businesses could say to their staff not to ‘stay home’ but instead to ‘work from home’,’ commented Mariano Corse, Research Head at the Osservatorio Smart Working de la School of Management – Politecnico di Milano, in the Sole 24 Ore publication. The Government’s emergency decree allows for agile working to automatically apply in ‘at-risk’ areas even in the absence of an individual written agreement as intended in the smart-working legislation in Law 81, 2017.
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