Fincons Group, an IT business consulting company with over 35 years’ experience internationally, and the Municipality of Bari have formed a partnership for a pilot Smart Working project as part of H2020 CITADEL (Empowering Citizens to Transform European Public Administrations, funded by the European Commission) ecosystem. The project envisages the development of a prototype using Blockchain and the involvement of some Municipality employees that will perform some of their duties in ‘agile working’ mode. In Italy, the Public Administration system has pledged to meet specific quantitative, organisational and technological objectives relating to Smart Working for its staff. Specifically, Art. 14 124/2015 demands that public sector organisations enable at least 10% of workers to use innovative time-space modes of working (agile work) should they request it. Public sector institutions are called upon to adapt their performance measurement and evaluation systems by adopting adequate organisational, technological and security measures, to verify the latter’s impact on the quality of service, effectiveness and efficiency of administration, on employee work-life balance, on process and worker security, including data protection in light of the introduction of the new GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation). The Municipality of Bari has officialised the introduction of this new mode of working and is looking to experiment with innovative ICT solutions that enable the management of Smart Work and of employees within a specific framework. This framework mandates the following conditions: at least one day of flexible working a week between 6am and 10pm with 2 hours compulsory availability, the ability for workers to freely structure the day in an agile way by working some of the time from the office and in part remotely (or entirely remotely in Smart Working), as well as the ability to introduce interruptions and re-starts throughout the working day.

The Municipality of Bari has officialised the introduction of this new mode of working and is looking to experiment with innovative ICT solutions that enable the management of Smart Work and of employees within a specific framework
The Municipality of Bari has officialised the introduction of this new mode of working and is looking to experiment with innovative ICT solutions that enable the management of Smart Work and of employees within a specific framework

Fincons Group’s solution is based on Ethereum DLT technology (Distributed Ledger Technology) combined with sophisticated and innovative encryption techniques that guarantee the integrity, reliability and traceability of information managed as provided by DLT, as well as full GDPR compliance. Initially, the pilot phase, starting in March 2019, involves 5 General Accounting Department employees, while the second phase, starting in July, will involve another 10 employees from other departments. The pilot will reach completion in September 2019. The partnership between Fincons and the

Municipality of Bari

further confirms Fincons’ strong connection with the Apulia region where the company has a feather in its cap: the Fincons Group Delivery Center. Based in the Bari main site, this Centre of Excellence houses over 500 employees and continues to grow. It supports the Group’s clients in Italy and abroad by offering solutions and innovative highly-level end-to-end projects bringing value directly to the local area. The Smart Working project sits well within the CITADEL objectives whose aim is to improve strategies and processes within public administration to offer increasingly efficient digital services that are more inclusive and citizen-centred. Fincons and the Apulia Region are two of 12 partners from 5 European nations that cooperate in this project and that together create an ideal mix of different ideas and perspectives, by bringing their own specific capabilities and backgrounds: from social research and technology to the development of industrial prototypes that are applicable in real-life. With this initiative, the Municipality of Bari perfectly combines smart contracts and smart working and positions itself yet again as a pioneer in innovative solutions to increase value and worker well-being. The authority is proving how the introduction of work-life balance policies that reconcile personal and professional life enables the implementation of DLT-based solutions that comply with art. 8 ter D.L. 135/2018, the so-called ‘Simplification Decree’. The latter is the first national law to begin to outline a legal framework for the use of Blockchain technology-based solutions.