Digitalisation and job quality—the evidence

The impact of digitalisation on work is uneven—but more positive where workers are protected by institutional arrangements.

The increasing use of digital technologies in European workplaces is undeniable but its precise impact on the world of work remains to be determined. There is a growing consensus about transformative effects of digitalisation on the structure of employment, with the emergence of new occupations and the destruction of others. Research points to changes in the task content of jobs and the potential of digital technologies to automate human labour, which may lead to mass unemployment but also to potentially worker-friendly reductions in working hours.

Beyond the structural changes, however, what has been the impact on job quality and workers’ experiences at work? What are the differences in job quality between digitalised and non-digitalised work settings in otherwise similar jobs?

A recent report from the European Trade Union Institute sheds light on these questions. It analyses computerised systems that control or otherwise influence what workers do at work—such as surveillance technologies, tracking devices, artificial-intelligence solutions and productivity-enhancing digital tools. Workers exposed to such digital technology in European Union member states are compared with those who are not, in otherwise similar jobs and institutional settings.

Hectic and unpredictable

Digitalisation can be a means to increase efficiency in task allocation and workers’ performance. This may be achieved by providing them with access to resources, such as information or tools, so that they can perform their tasks more quickly, but also through timing and allocating tasks more efficiently. Work activities can be divided into small time intervals, which are then allocated in real time to match precisely the timing of task performance with staffing.

While the idea itself is not new, digital technology with augmented computational capacities makes such matching of workloads to workers not only feasible but also cost-effective on a large scale. Time allocated to perform each task can additionally be squeezed, limiting any breaks, downtime or auxiliary activities, thus further increasing efficiency.

Workers in digitalised settings thus experience working hours as less predictable and the rhythm of work as more hectic. Digitalisation is linked to more frequent work at short notice, in particular in education, healthcare and financial services.

The effects of computerised systems on work also include more intense work rhythms. Work intensification is observed across all sectors but is most pronounced in construction, manufacturing and healthcare, supporting the thesis about effort-biased technological change.

Difficult to disconnect

The paradoxical impact of digital technologies is that they enable a more efficient allocation of work by closely matching tasks to workers but at the same time workers come under mounting pressure to make themselves more available. In some contexts, as with many forms of platform work, pushing workers to extend their availability may be an overt business strategy, but it may also be a by-product of the way workers interact with technology.

In some cases, it may be difficult to disconnect from work, which follows workers into their private time and spaces on a variety of portable devices: laptops, mobiles, tablets. This has been identified as a risk linked in particular to remote working and the platform economy, but workers in other types of work who use portable connected devices may also be susceptible.

As a result, the performance of many tasks encroaches on workers’ private time—extending beyond their contractual hours in the case of regular employees—and blurs the boundary around paid work. Workers who are exposed to computer influence are signifi­cantly more likely to work in their free time to meet work demands and generally work longer weeks and days. This has negative consequences for work-life balance—more so for men, interestingly.

Freelances less autonomous

Technological advances increase skill requirements for work, not only with new technologies but also to develop and produce them. Upskilling generally empowers workers and higher-skilled work tends to be more autonomous.

Digital technologies however furnish more ways to supervise, survey and control the workforce, with negative effects on autonomy. In the context of the platform economy, for instance, digitally mediated work carried out within the framework of precarious employment arrangements and algorithmic management constrains workers’ autonomy in deciding when and for how long they work or what tasks they accept.

The impact of digitalisation on autonomy is shaped by the quality of employment arrangements. Employees do not experience significant differences in their autonomy in relation to digitalisation. Freelances, however, suffer autonomy losses.

For this more vulnerable group of workers, which includes bogus self-employed and platform workers, digitalisation of the work process leads to more control and subordination, rather than to liberation as ‘entrepreneurs’. Bearing in mind that freelances are also more exposed to digital technologies at work, this is a cause for concern. The opposite is true for those self-employed who are directors or managing partners: this generally less precarious group is the only one to benefit from digitalisation in terms of increased autonomy.

With the growth of highly skilled occupations, digitalisation is thus correlated with greater worker autonomy overall. But this is due to parallel change in the composition of the workforce, rather than via direct impact of the technology on work.

Freed from drudgery?

Digital technologies should potentially free workers, at least in part, from the drudgery of physically demanding or dangerous tasks. Low to moderate exposure to digitalisation is however associated with more risk factors than none at all. Only workers heavily influenced by computer systems are less exposed to physical risks such as noise, chemical and biological substances, tiring or painful postures and the lifting and moving of heavy loads.

At the same time, working with digital devices breeds new challenges in terms of psychological demands and psychosocial and ergonomic risks. And while some physical risk factors can be expected to decline, others may gain in importance, such as those related to posture: workers in digitalised workplaces are most exposed to health risks associated with repetitive hand or arm movements, for instance.

The use of technology to replace the most risky human activities therefore appears limited in the round, with important trade-offs between traditional health risks and new risks specific to computer use. While some physical risks and demands are less common among workers who use computers at work, risks specifically related to automation and prolonged use of personal computers are emerging in their place, calling for further scrutiny of these trends and appropriate regulatory responses.

Institutions matter

The ways in which computers are integrated into the work process differ among countries. For example, in Germany, Luxembourg and the Netherlands information and communication technologies are used relatively frequently but computerised systems exert little influence on workers. In Romania, on the other hand, the use of computers is less common but their impact on the individual is disproportionately high. A similar pattern of less individual control by workers is found in some other eastern- and southern-European countries, such as Lithuania, Spain, Poland and Portugal.

Control over the work process by digital technologies can be more contained in countries where individual human control is anchored in broader industrial relations structures. Institutionalised arrangements better protect workers from various pressures—which can include those stemming from digitalisation. Therefore, the ultimate effect of digitalisation on work depends on the institutional context in which technology is introduced.

Agnieszka Piasna is senior researcher in economic, employment and social policies at the European Trade Union Institute in Brussels, focused on job quality, labour-market policies and regulation, working time and gender issues. She co-ordinates research in the framework of the ETUI project on contingent and platform work.