Half of Telecom Italia staff to work remotely in cautious approach after lockdown -document

Telecom Italia (TIM) will keep just over half of its staff working from home when Italy's biggest phone group begins a gradual reopening of its offices across Italy next week, company documents seen by Reuters showed. Italy, the original epicentre of a coronavirus outbreak in Europe, will on Monday start easing a nationwide lockdown imposed in early March to curb the spread of the virus.

Two-thirds of TIM's 45,000-strong staff have been working remotely during the lockdown. Under the company's reopening plans, agreed with national unions, around 23,200 employees, including customer care personnel, will continue to work from home, the internal documents showed.

A further 8,000, including executives and managers, will start returning to their offices from May 4 but will be working in shifts, alternating work from home and from their offices, in order to avoid overcrowding. Desks in open spaces will be reorganized in a chessboard-like arrangement, allowing social distancing, and staff will need to wear protective masks while in the office, the documents showed.