Cohabiting the needs of the family with those of work, innovating the way of working, making businesses more competitive by reducing unproductive work hours. These are the three different, apparently antithetical objectives of smart working, which is configured as an innovative approach to business organization, in which the individual needs of the worker are combined, in a complementary way, with those of the company. The concept of smart working includes multiple aspects. We move from the flexibility of the time and place of work performance up to forms of corporate welfare to facilitate working parents or engaged in forms of parental assistance. From a study by Eurofound and the World Labor Organization realized in 2017, it emerges that this new work methodology is taking place in Europe with an overall average labor incidence rate of 17%. Italy is the country that uses this opportunity less with a 2% share of the hours worked while other countries such as Denmark, Sweden, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Luxembourg and France, the share is well over 25%. The research also shows how the greatest limit to be attributed to this methodology of work is to be found in the increase in hours worked even beyond normal working hours. The study shows that in the US 78% of the extra hours worked between 2007 and 2014 are due to the work done by home and among those who work for more than 60 hours a week there are very high percentages of smart workers. For the employee smartworking is an advantage, just avoid an overload of work which, usually, is also unpaid work.

Finally, smart working is a method that encourages the autonomy of workers who, in a traditional context, are often held back by managers who fear losing control over the management of the company.

Essential in smartworking is the virtual cooperation and the continuous exchange of information between the virtual team that shares a path/project. The classical business organization assumes that the physical proximity of the subjects involves the automatic exchange of information between the team members while between subjects placed in separate places and contexts this is not always guaranteed. The main risk is given by the possibility that opportunistic behavior of individual team members can prevent the success of a project (everyone does his homework but can’t reach the goal). It is therefore necessary to develop new management styles and new performance management processes. To reduce the risks, it is therefore necessary:

1. Carefully plan the personnel selection phase (Virtual internship is the most effective method);

2. Invest in training with the aim of transferring to the worker an entrepreneurial and self-control mentality of his work;

3. Train managers not on the technical aspects but on the ability to assist, manage and motivate a Team

4. Organize the structure for projects by giving precise and measurable objectives to the individual teams

5. Adapt the technological equipment of the company by guaranteeing fast and customizable connection methods

6. Implement monitoring and control methodologies with precise indicators designed to evaluate the results achieved, not the hours worked.