14.01.2019

Employees are sceptical about digitalisation

St.Gallen - Only 50% of employees are looking forward to digitalisation. This is demonstrated by a survey presented at the second New Work Forum in St.Gallen

At the second New Work Forum in St.Gallen on Wednesday around 200 experts discussed the cooperation between people and machines in the future. The forum was organised by the New Work HR Panel of St.Gallen University (FHS). Alexandra Cloots, who is in charge of the forum and co-director of the HR Panel, presented the study she had compiled together with the rector of the university Sebastian Wörwag. According to a press release issued by the university, employees were surveyed on digitalisation. Only half said that they were looking forward to it. The increased pressure to perform and routinisation of work were cited as negative aspects, while the majority of those polled see digitalisation as an opportunity and being able to work anywhere as a positive development.

The study also concluded that there is a large amount of scepticism about digitalisation in management circles. The result of the survey, according to which only 18% of respondents see a change in management behaviour, corroborates this. Cloots is quoted in the press release as saying “We must communicate the benefits, the approach and the scope of a digitalisation strategy honestly and transparently.

During the discussion about the study at the New Work Forum the concept of freedom had a special significance. Therefore, as Roman Bügler from BSG Unternehmensberatung AG said in one of the seminars during the event, digitalisation can bring freedom. On the one hand, the positive perception of working from any location underlines this impression, but respondents also fear that additional rules might be introduced that would restrict flexibility again. As stated in the press release, it is therefore confirmed that a new kind of management behaviour is needed within the realms of digitalisation, “which is at odds with the already mentioned sceptics in management”. jh