Redefining the Organization of Work Post-Covid: the Experience of illimity

Marco Russomando tells us how illimity, the bank of which he is the HR director, has managed the sense of isolation, uncertainty, and the management problems regarding employees during the months of the pandemic: from the strengthening of internal communication, to the creation of courses to strengthen relational skills, to the organization of an awareness campaign to reduce the stress generated by hyperconnectedness and the loss of sociality, there are many activities that have provided an enhanced sense of community and belonging.

Starting with this experience, in July 2020 a new work model took hold, "the illimity way of working," that guarantees the possibility to work from home 50 percent of the time, and does not entail any system for monitoring online presence. The model is based on the culture of trust and responsibility, that facilitates exchange and collaboration within companies.

During the year of the pandemic, our way of working suddenly changed: an analysis of 12,000 employees in the United States, Germany, and India[1] shows that remote working (erroneously defined as smart working[2]) has become an ordinary component of work. The experience should not be abandoned going forward; if correctly reinterpreted, it can be a source of organizational learning.

In managerial discourse, the "new normal" label has become fashionable, used to define the transition towards a model of work that, starting with what happened during 2020, adopts the most constructive aspects of this transition. An analysis conducted by the Observatory on Diversity, Inclusion, and Smart Working of the SDA Bocconi School of Management in autumn 2020[3] shows that the mass remote working experience has been useful to overcome the obstacles to implementation and some psychological resistance regarding smart working  before the pandemic, and prevented its proper spread and application.[4] While the pandemic has shown us that technological barriers can be easily overcome, the barriers linked to social dynamics (a sense of isolation, nostalgia, fatigue, invasion, etc.) require more attention and reflection. This remains a critical point in the adoption of smart working, that should supplement office work, not replace it definitively. Otherwise, it would simply become a measure for efficiency and cost rationalization, and would end up distorting a useful tool.

To reflect on how companies are thinking of facing this "new normal," we interviewed Marco Russomando, the HR director of illimity, the bank founded in 2018 by Corrado Passera. Since its creation, illimity has adopted a business culture centered around work based on goals, not the quantity of hours spent behind a desk. Even before Covid-19 smart working was allowed once a week, coordinating with one's manager, to satisfy the personal or other needs of employees. This model was institutionalized in 2019, with the signing of an ad hoc company regulation on smart working. By that point, illimity had already neutralized one of the critical aspects of smart working: the illimiters (the name given to the bank's employees) were given lunch vouchers regardless of their presence in the office. Starting at the end of February 2020, all of the employees, who already had company computers and cell phones, shifted to 100 percent smart working: "It was very easy and fast," Russomando claimed, "since the peculiarity of illimity is precisely that of being a fully digital and cloud company, that makes it possible to easily guarantee normal operations even remotely. The devices provided ensure that all illimiters are always connected with each other. The greater complexity was found in the process of onboarding newly-hired employees, since it is certainly difficult to share business values and models through technology, to integrate people into working groups, and to favor the socialization of someone who was not part of the group up to that point."

The 100 percent remote working model required by the pandemic did however create a sense of fatigue, to the point of generating perpetual stress: some workers had to manage the complexity of having their entire family unit at home; others spent a very long period of time completely alone. To manage the feeling of isolation, uncertainty, and the management problems that arose, a direct channel of communication was opened up with the personnel director: "People can make an appointment with me for 15 minutes and discuss any problems." illimity also strengthened internal communication, with updates by the HR Team on the coronavirus situation and the good practices to be adopted. The "Good News" newsletter was also circulated, which tells of how the company is adapting to the emergency and what life is like for illimiters during quarantine.

The HR department also opened a channel of communication with the managers: "Once a month, with the first line and all of the 60 managers, we meet virtually for a moment of discussion and use an internal chat to keep ourselves constantly up-to-date." New e-learning courses were initiated to enhance technical knowledge, but above all to strengthen soft skills, that are the "true motor of illimity." Moreover, an awareness campaign was organized in order to reduce the stress generated by hyperconnectedness and the loss of sociality. "We asked for more efficiency in the organization of calls, to avoid always being on the phone, and not to write too many e-mails; we asked the managers to call their people even just to see how they were doing," Russomando tells us. While at the beginning there was a sense of disorientation, these activities generated a strong sense of community and the need to keep open the possibility for discussion and exchange: "The managers realized that they were part of a transmission belt." Thanks to these support measures we did not detect any drop in performance, "but we discovered that we were just as efficient at a distance." Russomando thus argues that it was not necessary to introduce any system to monitor online presence: "Such control systems prevent the construction of trust, which is the necessary glue to make remote working function."

In May 2020, an internal survey was launched to identify people's wishes for when the pandemic ends. Since the employees expressed the desire to return to the "new normal," with the possibility to work from home 50 percent of the time, in the month of July 2020 a new model of work was defined that would be introduced starting in September: "The illimity way of working." This model, implemented experimentally in September and October, modified the organization of spaces "from the concept of personal desk to that of desk in my area," introducing a system for reserving the workstation within the space dedicated to the working group through a specific app.

With the introduction in October of the restrictions linked to regional areas, illimity decided to consider the "red zone" restrictions as permanent. Employees resumed working 100 percent remotely, "with the possibility to go to the office for business needs, upon approval from the division head, and only if the person felt up to it." The decision came from the recognition of the fact that people expect "stability, even in uncertainty." "As soon as we enter the 'new normal,' the 'illimity way of working' will be implemented again." At this point, the real worry regards the fact that "people may begin to suffer under the weight of this forced distancing, with the desire to rediscover proximity."

The experience of illimity teaches us that remote working is an echo of an organization's ability to work well with fewer forms of control. To make this model function, though, it is necessary to generate a culture of trust and responsibility, facilitating exchange and collaboration: "If there is trust between people and they feel responsible, the place where they are located is not so important." A more critical reflection regards the dematerialization of the spaces that accompany the implementation of smart working, as also provided for by the illimity way of working: the loss of a fixed desk and the need to reserve one's workstation, if not implemented holistically in the new way of working, risks disincentivizing presence in the office and thus not responding to the need for relationships, which is the primary need expressed by the employees.