“Smart” or “Agile” work is referred to as a modality for the organization of the work performance that allows workers to execute their performance, wholly or partly, outside of a physical workplace and without time constraints, thanks to the use of digital work devices that allow for a remote communication with the main organization. 

 Specific objectives of this strand of research are:

• to identify the challenges and opportunities entailed in the new “virtual” dimension of workplace, as long as productivity and workers’ wellbeing are concerned;
• to investigate the changing role of time and space in the organisation of the workplace and of the work performance;
• to identify the relationship between smart work and telework under the 2002 European Framework Agreement, also in order to propose improvements and adjustments of the European regulation in coherence with the opportunities offered by new technologies;
• to investigate how smart work affects health and safety aspects, identifying most prominent risks and possible ways of tackle them;
• to investigate how smart work affects work-life balance, investigating the growing intrusiveness of work in private life enabled by mobile devices (also referred to in the literature as “time porosity”);
• to study the active role of representation bodies in overseeing and influencing the adjustment of employment patterns on crucial issues such: organization, measurement, monitoring, assessment and remuneration of the digital work performance, work-life balance, health and safety, professional skills, social effects of the digital restructuring.