Navigating the proliferation of smart technology in the workplace
Dr. Simon Schafheitle
Assistant Professor, IEBIS Department, University of Twente.
It is commonplace that smart technology burgeons in almost all areas of people management and applications, such as hiring algorithms, smart performance management dashboards, virtual learning assistants or Internet of Things applications are salient tokens thereof. This gives rise to two opposing narratives on the future prospect of employees vis-à-vis technology deployment, vividly moving between Harari‘s (2015) idea of Homo Deus and Zuboff‘s (2019) surveillance capitalism. In this talk, I propose the focus on employees’ trust in the employer as a viable compass for realizing both efficiency gains and a „good“ employee experience from the use of smart technology deployment. More precisely, I focus on salient employee vulnerability as the core of trust and argue, that a nuanced understanding of how technological functioning logics and employee vulnerability relate offers pathways for tailored active trust management strategies for the organization to seize „the best of both worlds“. Based on this theorizing, I am very excited about a fruitful discussion and valuable learnings.
Simon Schafheitle is Assistant Professor for Human Resource Management and Artificial Intelligence within the vibrant IEBIS community. In this function, he strives for a better understanding of datafication in the workplace and trust so that organizations can create a technology-permeated environment where people can grow and flourish. He received his doctorate from the University of St. Gallen in 2020, focusing on the impact of datafication technologies on 21st century workplace architectures, particularly emphasizing the dual relationship of trust and HR control. Currently, he emphasizes the role of vulnerability amidst workplace datafication, which lies at the heart of trust but is scarcely investigated so far. His research interests lie in the areas of smart technologies inside trust and control configurations, meaningfulness of work, as well as in the tradition of evidence-based management.