With the succession of decrees relating to the containment of the spread of Covid-19, the catering sector has had to temporarily stop, like many other production activities. There are many consequences that this necessary measure entails and many aspects to be managed.
In short, you will have a lot to do even during this closure, which we hope will be as short as possible: a lot of bureaucracy to sort through, as well as some possible ideas to make this moment fruitful. In this article we focus on personnel management and the different types of social safety nets that may be required.
Which social shock absorber?
On 16 March the Cura Italia decree was approved with the economic measures and the 25 billion allocated to deal with the lockdown of non-essential production activities.
The provision allocates funds for various financial needs. More than 10 billion euros will go to employment support to defend income and work, extending different types of support to employees, self-employed, seasonal and other forms of work.
If you are wondering what type of social safety net it is possible to request in the catering sector, there are two those for which employers can apply: the FIS (wage integration fund) and the redundancy fund in derogation.
Salary Integration Fund
The FIS is a mandatory fund for all employers who employ more than 5 employees on average. It makes use of two types of cheque: ordinary and solidarity , depending on whether or not the company has the possibility of continuing to work, albeit on a reduced basis.
Redundancy Fund
If you have fewer than 5 employees, you can instead request the redundancy fund (also valid for companies with 5 to 15 employees who have had a reduction in activity of more than 60%). 
How to activate it?
In both cases , the company pays the salary to the worker and INPS will make the contribution adjustment in favor of the employer. Each social shock absorber can also be activated retroactively starting from 23 February and up to 30 August, with a maximum duration of 9 weeks. We therefore carefully choose the best period for us.
The Covid emergency has simplified these tools in several ways:
- they do not accumulate with any other past or future requests for social shock absorbers;
- these social safety nets have no cost to the company;
- it can also be enjoyed by newly hired workers (who are usually excluded from wage integration measures);
- there is no obligation to communicate in advance to the unions about the causes, the entity, the foreseeable duration and the number of workers involved. However, a brief communication via pec will be made to the main acronyms;
- the INPS file can be opened by the end of the fourth month following the one in which the suspension period began.
Since at the moment the funds for the Redundancy Fund by way of derogation have been allocated by the Regions, always refer to yours and the related ordinances. 
What does it take to activate a social shock absorber?
To have access to these tools, you need to have these three elements ready.
We recommend having them ready in any case, because they are probably also useful in the event of adjustments or the introduction of new forms of social safety net:
1. dimensional screening of the activity with reference to the 6 months preceding the suspension and with reference to the units. There is a difference between part time, full time, seasonal workers etc. which are counted differently. The first fundamental thing to do to know which social safety net you are entitled to is to correctly calculate your work units.
In the calculation we must consider workers of any qualification including apprentices; however, interns and administrators are excluded. If the worker member has a slip and pays contributions to INPS, he can access compensation like other employees.
2. dates of employment and related documentation that your job consultant will help you find;
3. holiday/leave/roll calculation . It is likely that before accessing any social safety net you will be asked to use up your holidays and workers' permits. In fact too Fipe on its website first of all mentions the use of individual contractual flexibility instruments, ie holidays, paid leaves and multi-period distribution of working hours. 
Other resources
You probably have many more questions about the social shock absorber that is best suited to your situation. If you start the delivery business by reducing working hours, for example, you can still apply for social safety nets; in this case the compensation will be adjusted to the reduction of working hours.
When you try out this new service, take all the necessary precautions to safeguard the health of employees and customers. Also make sure you use materials (trays, compostable dishes) that have the declaration of conformity for the MOCA category (Materials and Objects in Contact with Food), valid at European level. More information on FCMs can be found on the European Commission website , where there are also links to the relevant legislation.
We have reached the end of this rather technical article, and therefore we propose a different activity for the next few days of lockdown: take the opportunity to calculate the food cost to optimize expenses. If the result does not satisfy you, contact us for a free consultation on our innovative solutions suitable for any type of establishment.