Sistemi di inquadramento, retribuzione c.d. skill-based e contrattazione collettiva

Abstract

The research deals with an issue of outstanding significance within the framework of the so-called new “Great transformation of work”: the economic valorisation of workers’ soft skills. The incessant changes in production methods and technologies, indeed, have prompted companies to orient the management of human resources towards the valorisation of certain distinctive features of professionalism: among others, adaptability, outcome orientation, and team working. The present research aims to investigate how and why collective bargaining, in a coordinated market economy like Italy, did contribute or did not contribute to the regulation of this increasingly relevant aspect in the employment relationship. To this end, the survey examines the job classification systems of 50 economic sectors, as well as a set of company-level collective agreements that regulate so-called skill-based pay schemes. The analysis is also enriched by a total of 44 semi-structured interviews, mainly addressed to social partners’ representatives. The research results show that it is mostly in the capital intensive sectors, or in those where the processes of technological innovation and automation have more considerably impacted on employment and production conformation, that mechanisms for the economic valorisation of soft skills have been agreed, in the form of both job classification systems at the national level, and variable pay schemes at company level. In contrast, in the labor intensive sectors, despite the programmatic commitment of social partners to reform the wage and classification structure, there exists a mismatch between wage levels and professionalism expressed in terms of soft skills. This situation is because of the long-standing compromise between the employers’ need to maintain the control over the cost of labour, and the trade unions’ preference for fixed wage increases, which are not permeable to variable indicators, such as individual skills’ appraisal dynamics.