Digitalization Changing Work: Employees’ View on the Benefits and Hindrances

Abstract

The Digitalization of work may enable better use of knowledge, which is expected to result in enhanced productivity and efficiency. Different organizations adopt digital ways of working, products, services and processes in different ways and paces. The extent and pace of capitalizing digitalization's potential in organizations has much to do with human attitude, ability to learn and the possibilities provided to use it in work. When looking digitalization from the employee viewpoint, it seems that the great expectations are not easily fulfilled. In fact, the effects of digitalization may be negative. This paper discusses the expectations and fears employees have towards digitalization changing their work. The issue is approached by using a qualitative data gathered along a survey. The aim was to find out if they see the effects digitalization has on their work as positive, negative, or something else, and which areas are highlighted

The Role of Employees’ Technology Readiness, Job Meaningfulness and Proactive Personality in Adaptive Performance

“…Changes in work environments that are in line with technology changes have initiated the concept of technology adaptability among employees [1]. Employees must adapt to the newly introduced technology applications, be ready to learn and enhance their technology skills and address any challenges in executing their tasks in the new job structure [13,28].…”

“…Employees' motivation, attitude and positive reinforcement are core factors that influence employees' intention to utilize technology to adapt to the new job structure [14]. Empirically, it has also been proven that the use of new technology can increase employees' job effectiveness [1] and has the potential to enhance employees' adaptive performance.…”

“…Organizations are taking the steps toward utilization of digital technology in managing business to ensure business continuity, maintain a competitive edge and improve business performance. The utilization of digital technology can speed up work processes [1] and increase the organization's productivity [2]. Moreover, failure of an organization to adopt digitalization can cause the organization to withdraw from the market [3].…”

“…However, the majority of the previous studies on digital transformation have been more focused on the smoothness of dealings with external stakeholders, especially their relationship with customers, and disregarded the roles of employees in the process [9,10]. But digital transformation requires employees to adapt to the changes in the new working environment by learning digital skills and critical thinking skills in the course of executing their jobs [1,11]. Failure to adapt to the changes may impact productivity and jeopardize the continuity of the organization [12].…”

Information ergonomics in eHealth

“…Considering health care work in by digital means those fit perfectly, yet some elaboration is still required. Especially spatial dispersion is considered somewhat problematic when serving patients as proximity lowers the burden of consulting other expert or augmenting skillset [34].…”