The use of ICT services and tools by PRO research personnel in agile working during the COVID-19 pandemic

With the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Italian public administration had to resort to a massive activation of agile working in a situation characterized by chronic delays in widespread adoption of ICT solutions, as well as a state of inertia in providing adequate training for staff on the use of technological services. While organizations attempted to respond to the emergency by providing new tools and services for remote work, many employees, at least in the first phase, were forced to deal with the skills acquired independently in order to use ICT services available and seek solutions to any technical or operational problems. Even knowledge workers, who are highly qualified and potentially predisposed to autonomous and innovative ways of performing research activities, had to adapt to new work dynamics characterized by an increased use of ICTs. This contribution aims to describe the mode and intensity of use of ICT services and tools by nonacademic research personnel during agile working performed in emergency. The interest is primarily focused on the individual early adoption or increased use of ICT resources in response to out-of-office working conditions, regardless of the degree of physical IT equipment eventually provided by organizations. The investigation focuses on the following topics: i) the research personnel's approach to using ICTs for agile working, taking into account individual and organizational preparation; ii) the use experience of ICT tools and services during agile working, enlightening which of them could have played a potentially transformative role in the organization of work; and iii) the main obstacles they encountered in using ICTs in agile working.