From 27 to 28 January 2023 took place in Bled, Slovenia, a seminar about “Digital transformation: new skills for new job profiles and new forms of work”, organised by ZD NSi (Združenje delavcev Nove Slovenije), with the support of EZA and funded by the European Union.
It aimed to identify opportunities for a healthy, smooth and efficient digital transformation of European jobs while avoiding the biggest threats of digital transformation.
The Covid-19 pandemic was the first time most European citizens had direct experience working remotely. Through this experience, employers and workers have experienced some of the benefits and risks of digitalisation. The digital shock has subsided three years on, and it is time for a fresh rethink.
The seminar, attended by 51 representatives of workers’ organisations from 10 European countries, in first part aimed to further define the concept of digital transformation and, in the second part, to understand competencies as one of its foundations. In the third and fourth sessions, we looked at the risks of digital transformation. The fifth and sixth sections addressed the broader political angle. We looked at the Digital Platform of the European Union and at the systemic measures that different countries have taken in the field of digitisation.
Digitalisation is a powerful and unstoppable trend
In a globalized society, the development of digitalisation will continue whether we want it to or not. The essential elements of digital transformation are data, equipment and employees' competencies. Both employers and employees understand the need for equipment. But we have a bigger challenge with the other two elements.
When we plan a digital transformation, we need to get the information, link it together and build a decision-making process on top of it. One of Industry 4.0's main goals is to interconnect machines so that many challenges are solved automatically, with people involved only in the supervision process.
Systems in which man and machine work together in multiple ways are becoming increasingly common. Many employees with years of experience have an excellent command of individual machines, and these skills are rare and extremely important for companies. But if digital transformation is not done properly, such competencies can be easily lost. This is also why it is essential to develop the digital competencies of workers.
Digital competences
While humans may be highly adaptable, it can take time to change our life patterns and develop our competencies. Digital competencies are defined in several models. In this seminar, we highlighted three of them: the eight key competencies for lifelong learning, DigiComp and the competencies recommended by the World Economic Forum.
Based on the discussion, the participants in the seminar identified three groups of competencies on which we would like to place particular emphasis:
Mathematical/digital/algorithmic/problem-solving ways of thinking. They could also be called digital competencies in a narrower sense, as they are directly related to working with machines.
Competence in working with people. As certain jobs, including those that involve human interaction, are increasingly taken over by machines, there is a danger that these services are being stripped of their humanity. In some professions (e.g. nurses), these competencies are already undervalued and underpaid in some parts of Europe.
Looking after ourselves in the face of digitalisation. The consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic have already shown us how digital shock can upset many personal and social equilibria. We do not yet know all the new stressors, as well as the addictive elements, that digitalisation brings! We must recognize the dangers quickly and develop the competencies to prevent them.
The risks of digital transformation
The main risks of digital transformation at a personal level include a high amount of sedentary work (homo sedens culture), increased loneliness, new addictive behaviors, the 24/7 availability trend and a broken balance between work and leisure time.
Several speakers addressed the challenge of isolation from different perspectives: loneliness, lack of relationships, conversation and consultation among colleagues. This is all a very highrisk factor.
All these risks are also transferred to public health through data collection. Some of the challenges, for example, stress and burnout, are very worrying in some environments.
We have also highlighted the risks at a systemic level, particularly the various new types of employment, especially those through digital platforms. The risks are linked to the changing algorithms for the calculation of the worker's earnings, over which they have no control, to the new forms of precariousness, and to the legal status of these workers (they appear to be entrepreneurs, but are in fact dependent on the algorithm that gives them their jobs).
Possible solutions
The possible solutions could be grouped into three categories: at the level of the individual, at the level of the companies and at the system.
On an individual level, we talked mainly about competence building: time management, priority setting, personal commitment to how much time one wants to spend on social networks, sports, hobbies and proactive leisure, strengthening personal focus, and problem-solving groups (e.g. video game addiction).
At the level of companies, we have mentioned corporate workplace health campaigns, education for workers and employers, and groups made up of both workers and their employers, which have the mandate to take various actions on workplace health.
At a systemic level, we encourage governments to develop digital transformation strategies. These should be ambitious and holistic (looking at the human person as a whole being), they should coordinate different areas, and they should help to bring digitalisation into the public discourse. Many measures have been tried in different areas in different countries, some have worked, and others have not - and there are lessons to be learned.
At the systemic level, the key focuses are education (which should be lifelong, inclusive and involving different stakeholders) and social dialogue, with a particular emphasis on face-to-face encounters, pluralism and finding a way to reach out to young people.