The World Health Organization, once the coronavirus illness reached 118,000 cases in over 110 countries and territories around the world declared COVID-19 a pandemic on March 11(Time Magazine)
As a consequence, social distancing measures were, by no mean, implemented worldwide by governments to slower the virus run and, various business sectors, in particular those ones based on services creation and delivery, started relying on smart working practices for their employees.
Smart working is not a novel concept or standard. Constant technological developments are making possible new approaches changing the traditional professional relation of an employee with the workplace and their work responsibilities and performance.
For instance, the UK government published in 2013 a guide to promote the so called the Way We Work 3W initiative in support of smart working in the public sector.
However, the current pandemic crisis has definitely boosted this practice and what appeared to be a secondary phenomenon has gain momentum.
Definitions of smart working
https://www.unece.org.net4all.ch/fileadmin/DAM/stats/documents/ece/ces/ge.58/2017/mtg4/Paper_11-_Di_Nicola_rev.pdf
https://ec.europa.eu/futurium/en/european-ai-alliance/project-eu-xxi-or-how-lead-ai-world-open-letter-european-parliament-european
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-way-we-work-tw3-best-practice-guidelines-for-smarter-working
http://www.flexibility.co.uk/downloads/TW3-Guide-to-SmartWorking-withcasestudies-5mb.pdf
Statistics
Reference
Chart from research report jointly published in 2017 by ILO and Eurofound working anytime, anywhere: the effects on the world of work.
The abbreviation T/ICTM stands for Telework/ICT-mobile work.