For months the debate on smart working has been described as an almost ideological opposition: office versus remote, presence versus freedom. A simple reading, but also profoundly reductive, which does not capture the broader transformation that the world of work is going through in the years following the pandemic.
The point, in fact, is not whether work should return to the office or remain remote. The point is that the relationship between work and physical place is progressively becoming disconnectedopening completely new scenarios for organizations, for workers and for the very concept of career.
For over a century, professional life has been structured around an implicit assumption: work coincides with a specific place. The factory, the office, the company headquarters were the pivot around which hierarchies, decision-making processes and social dynamics revolved. The pandemic has shattered this pattern with a speed that few would have imagined, forcing millions of workers to experiment with alternative models in a matter of months.
Today, a few years later, it is increasingly clear that the change was not temporarybut it opened a much deeper phase of redefinition.
From presence to responsibility
One of the most significant transformations concerns the transition from a culture of presence to a culture of responsibility. For decades, productivity has been measured through visibility: being in the office, attending meetings, physically occupying a space within the organization.
Remote work breaks this pattern because it highlights an often ignored truth: presence does not necessarily coincide with the value produced.
«Remote work does not simply mean working from home», observes Matteo Papa, Regional Director Europe of Airalo, an international scale up that has built its organization entirely around a distributed model. «It’s a completely different operating system. Many companies try to transfer the same office model online, multiplying meetings and checks without really rethinking processes and tools, and the result is often frustration and fatigue.”
The point, therefore, is not the distance itself, but the ability of organizations to rethink their functioning. When remote work is treated as a simple extension of the traditional office, it inevitably creates inefficiencies. However, when it becomes part of a broader plan, it can transform into a true organizational accelerator.
The new geography of talent
Another obvious effect concerns the geography of work. If the location ceases to be the center of the organization, the talent market also ceases to be confined within the limits of the city or country where the company is headquartered.
Airalo represents an interesting example of this transformation. The company, active in the eSIM space for travelers, now operates in over two hundred destinations and counting more than four hundred collaborators distributed in over fifty countries. Among these are fifteen people based in Italy and seventeen Italian professionals working from other parts of the worlda composition that reflects the inherently global nature of the organization.
«From the beginning we wanted to build an international company capable of attracting talent wherever they are located», explains Papa. «We serve a global community of travelers and having a team spread across different geographical areas was a natural consequence».
This approach allows companies to enormously expand the pool of available skills, overcoming the geographical constraints that have limited the job market for decades. At the same time it opens up new opportunities for professionals, who can choose where to live without necessarily having to give up international career paths.
Corporate culture is no longer born in the corridors
If technology makes distributed work possible, the real challenge however concerns company culture. In traditional offices, much of the organizational culture arises spontaneously: informal conversations in the corridors, shared coffee breaks, casual encounters that strengthen relationships and mutual trust.
In remote work these moments do not exist automatically and therefore must be intentionally designed.
«In a distributed organization, culture cannot be left to chance», underlines Papa. «If in the office it is also developed through physical proximity, in the remote environment it must be carefully constructed».
This is why some companies are introducing roles dedicated to designing the team’s internal experience. In Airalo there is a figure called Remote Experience Managercharged with developing initiatives that strengthen the sense of community even in a completely digital environment.
In recent months, for example, they have been organised over a thousand casual online encounters between colleagues from different departmentsdesigned to recreate those spontaneous interactions that would arise naturally in an office in front of the coffee machine. Alongside these moments there are digital spaces dedicated to personal interests, because – as Papa underlines – “people are not just their professional role, but individuals with passions, curiosities and relationships that they wish to share”.
The post-Covid generation
At the same time, the pandemic has helped redefine workers’ expectations, especially among younger generations. For many professionals who have entered the job market in the last five years, flexibility no longer represents an ancillary benefit but a fundamental component of the quality of life.
Work is no longer perceived exclusively as a career space, but as part of a broader balance that includes personal time, relationships and choice.
According to an internal survey relating to the last quarter of 2025 among Airalo employees, 91% say they are not afraid to be themselves at workWhile 84% say they have a good balance between private and professional life.
«When such a high percentage of people declare that they can express themselves freely, it means that there is a strong psychological safety», explains Papa. «And when the majority perceives a good balance between work and private life, it means that the organizational model really manages to support people».
Freedom and belonging
Even in the most distributed organizations, however, there remains an element that no digital platform can completely replace: human contact.
For this reason, many remote companies organize periodic moments of physical meeting. In Airalo there is an annual event called Air it Awayduring which the global team gathers in person to strengthen relationships and create collective memory. In recent years these meetings have taken place in different parts of the world, from Phuket to Cancun to the Vietnamese island of Phu Quoc.
«Freedom without belonging can transform into isolation», observes Papa. «But belonging without freedom also risks becoming control».
According to this vision, true balance arises from the alternation between daily autonomy and intentional moments of live connection, a combination that allows distributed organizations to maintain cohesion and identity while operating on a global scale.
The work of the future will not be the same for everyone
The debate on smart working often tends to simplify a transformation that is actually much more complex. Not all companies will be able to function completely remotely and not all professions will allow it. At the same time, however, it appears increasingly clear that work will not simply revert to the previous model.
The pandemic opened a phase of global experimentation that continues today. Some organizations are redefining their leadership models, others are rethinking the role of offices, and many are exploring new forms of distributed collaboration.
In the meantime, a more fluid world of work is emerging, less tied to places and much more centered on people, in which the real challenge will not be choosing between remote or presence, but building models capable of reconciling freedom, responsibility and belonging.
