Facilitated smart working will no longer exist starting from Monday 1 April 2024. The measure created during the Covid-19 pandemic will also end for the last categories who were entitled to it, fragile private workers with children under 14. We will move on to individual agreements with employers.
Starting from Monday 1 April 2024, the regime will officially close for everyone facilitated smart working. The last category that could benefit from it will also have to renounce it, i.e. private sector employees who have children under 14 or who are among the ‘fragile’ because for health reasons they are exposed to the worst consequences of Covid-19. In the latest Milleproroghe decree, the opposition had tried to include a further extension of the relief, but the majority refused because the measure was only supposed to serve for the period of the Covid emergency, and not become fixed.
Who can no longer work remotely
For public employees, facilitated smart working had already ended at the end of December 2023. Only private sector workers who met specific requirements remained eligible for it. There were the parents with children under 14, but only if the other parent was not unemployed or receiving income support. And then there were the workers fragilethat is, those with a “marked immune compromise” recognized with a medical certificate, as a specific 2022 decree defined them.
The rules will remain the same until 31 March, while from 1 April 2024 subsidized smart working will no longer exist. This means that the rules will be the same for all categories of workers. Although, for public employees, there is a ministerial circular dated 29 December which invites managers to protect “those most exposed to health risk situations” also through smart working. In general, individual and company agreements will once again apply.
When subsidized smart working ends and what changes for vulnerable workers and parents of under 14s
What are the new rules for smart working from April 2024
Facilitated smart working, in fact, allowed those who met the requirements to obtain smart working regardless of the company’s wishes: it was their right, without demotions or salary cuts. Now, however, working ‘from home’ will be permitted within the limits of individual agreements with the employer and the conditions set out in your contract.
The individual agreement must be a written document, voluntarily agreed upon by the employee and the employer. It can have a limited or indefinite duration, it can establish which periods will be spent ‘on site’ and which will be spent remotely, and even which spaces are not considered suitable for smart working. If the company makes equipment available for those who work remotely, these must also be included in the agreement, which must specify the expected rest times.
Furthermore, even if there will be no facilitated smart working, some categories will have to have an order of priority. If (and only if) you intend to stipulate an individual agreement with employees for remote working, priority will be given to those who have children under 12 or children with disabilities. Unlike subsidized smart working, it is not a right, but simply a priority if agreements are stipulated in the company.
