28 November 2020 by Mondo2.0

South Working, Suburban Working: new ways of working

In March 2020, suddenly and irreversibly, our society became digital.
According to the ISTAT Report “SITUATION AND PROSPECTS OF ENTERPRISES IN THE COVID-19 HEALTH EMERGENCY”:
Between March and April 2020, the share of workers working “remotely” was 8.8%.
The incidence of staff employed in agile working reached 21.6% in medium-sized companies (compared with 2.2% in January-February).
Even after the end of the lockdown (May-June 2020), the share of workers employed remotely, although declining, remained significant (5.3%).

To tell the truth, the “remote” working dynamics brought about by the pandemic are more similar to a sort of “working quarantine” than to true “smart” dynamics (where the worker chooses, according to commitments and objectives, whether to work at home, at the client’s premises or in the office).
Despite the evident limits of the current mode of “remote working”, the “digital step” made in just a few months is evident: we have learned to communicate, not for leisure, through meeting platforms and chats, to share daily, weekly and monthly objectives digitally, and to use the cloud to share documents.

A change that concerns not only companies and productivity but the entire social sphere.

A change that will determine numerous long-term consequences.
One of these effects? We find it in the neologism, recently coined and already widespread, even recorded by Treccani, “South working”, which we quote literally: “Remote work for companies physically located in Northern Italy, carried out from home or in smart-working mode by people who live in Southern Italy”.
Digital, remote work has allowed hundreds of thousands of people to “return home”.
Let us try to imagine the effects of this industrial de-urbanisation.
From the “south worker’s” point of view:

A reduction in travel which, even after the pandemic, will be functional to work objectives and not compulsory (not always Monday to Friday, so to speak).
A reduction in costs, not only those related to travel; commuters often have the possibility of renting a shared flat or just a single room.
An improvement in lifestyle: one lives with loved ones, is not often travelling, and has more time and financial resources available. One eats better, sleeps regularly.

Many of these workers, until the fateful March 2020, saw clients and colleagues in person every day and used digital platforms to communicate with their loved ones. Suddenly, there was a reversal of roles: now “south workers” use digital platforms to work and see their loved ones every day.

From the “company’s” point of view:

Lower logistical costs: if my employees are only partly present on site, I can downsize offices and premises, reduce travel costs and canteen costs.
Greater use of digital communication tools and the cloud, with paper use almost reduced to zero.
Greater attention to objectives to be achieved rather than physical presence.
Greater possibility of finding professional figures even far from company offices. On closer inspection, “south working” (and partly smart working as well) concerns medium-high-level professionals, often graduates and/or people with sector-specific skills.
Possibility of creating flexible and heterogeneous “virtual” work teams.
Need to identify “digital team managers” able to apply agile working methods and communicate empathetically through the Net, therefore even in the absence of “vis-à-vis”.

From the “social” point of view:

A relocation of consumption: the “south worker” works “for the north” but lives and spends all their money in the south.
A de-urbanisation of the “cities”, with lower demand both for offices and for housing for workers.
The construction sector will have to shift significantly from building large offices to redeveloping suburbs.
Less pollution due to less travel: train, plane, car. Millions of people who “do not go” to work while still working.
A different perception of working times and methods, no longer linked to clocking in and physical presence but to the work itself.
Greater possibility, for those who live in the south, to marry and have children. Greater emotional continuity with one’s partner, closeness to family, lower expenses… all factors that make long-term projects possible in one’s native places.
In line with the previous point, the repopulation of small towns.
Greater possibility of interacting and working with people from other regions or other countries.

South working is much more than “working with a sea view”; it is part of a new digital industrial revolution, characterised by less physical presence, a significantly reduced number of journeys, the de-urbanisation of urban centres, in a transregional and transnational labour market where it is the task and the professionalism, not the location, that “make the monk”, that is, determine the acquisition of the working resource.

To this neologism, which as mentioned is already very widespread, we add one coined by us while writing this article: “Suburban working”.
For all those who, as a lifestyle choice, have already chosen not to live “in the centre” but in the suburbs.
This is the case of thousands of New York workers who, for some years now, have decided to move away from extraordinary but overcrowded and extremely expensive Manhattan in favour of places and spaces more suited to people (and especially families), for example in New Jersey.

These workers, who became commuters by personal or family choice, have found themselves, in this new dynamic and digital working context, becoming “suburban workers”, that is, digital workers in the suburbs. They too, after the pandemic, will find themselves choosing every day, according to work commitments, whether to stay at home or make a long journey to the office. They too will pollute less, consume less (or perhaps better?), be less stressed, be able to save and spend more time with friends and family.

At the same time, software services, chats and meeting platforms, used by hundreds of millions of people around the world, will continue to improve, providing new forms of interaction and increasingly immediate, realistic images and audio.

In this whirlwind of novelty and optimism, it is right to point out that not all jobs can be relocated; there is a natural limit, not all of us can work “smart”. Not everyone, but millions of people can.

And it is right once again to point out that what we are experiencing today, during this terrible pandemic, is not true “smart working” but a sort of digital quarantine.

Nevertheless, we are optimistic; we believe that digital work is radically changing our society. It will allow us to abandon an outdated, antiquated model of presence, travel, productivity and stress, in favour of a more reasonable lifestyle where “man uses the machine” according to his actual needs, and not vice versa.

After all, if you have come this far, it is because you too are aware that you live in a Mondo 2.0.

Mondoduepuntozero