Smart working, SME law comes into force on Tuesday: here are the novelties

New rules for smart working arrive. On Tuesday, 7 April, the first annual law expressly dedicated to SMEs, the small and medium-sized enterprises (Law 34 of 2026, published in Official Gazette 68 of 23 March 2026), comes into force. Among the new features, some concern agile working (Article 11). Agile working (or smart working) is a mode of execution of the subordinate employment relationship characterised by the absence of hourly or spatial constraints and an organisation by phases, cycles and objectives, established by agreement between employee and employer; a mode that helps the worker reconcile work and life times and, at the same time, encourages productivity growth.

"For the work activity carried out in agile working mode in working environments that do not fall within the legal availability of the employer," the provision states, "the fulfilment of all the safety obligations compatible with this working mode, in particular those pertaining to the use of videoterminals, is ensured by the employer through the delivery to the worker and to the workers' representative for safety, at least once a year, of a written information in which the general risks and the specific risks connected with the particular mode of performance of the employment relationship are identified, without prejudice to the obligation of the worker to cooperate in the implementation of the preventive measures prepared by the employer to deal with the risks connected with the performance of the service outside the company premises". The regulation applies to companies and employers of any size.

Sanctions

Not only. Part of Article 11 (letter b) updates another regulation: Article 55 of Legislative Decree 81 of 2008, the Safety Consolidation Act, which outlines the package of sanctions related to violations of health and safety provisions. The result is that, as recalled by the Fondazione Studi Consulenti del Lavoro in its latest in-depth study entitled 'Agile work and safety: what changes with the new law on SMEs', in the event of failure to provide the worker and the RLS (workers' safety representative) with written information on health and safety obligations at work, sanctions are triggered for the employer, ranging from arrest from two to four months up to fines of up to EUR 7,403.96. The information sheet, to be provided at least once a year, must indicate the general and specific risks associated with the working method, including the use of video terminals.

The law on SMEs, reads the text of the in-depth study, 'intervenes directly on legislative decree 9 April 2008, no. 81, reinforcing a principle that in recent years had already found progressive evolution in application practice and doctrinal reflection. The legislator identifies, in fact, the written information as the pivotal instrument through which, in agile work, the fulfilment of employers' health and safety obligations is realised'. "The legislator thus shows full awareness of the fact that agile work is not a mere transposition of traditional work into a different context, but implies a different configuration of risk factors".