PERSONAL quarterly 2/2020

7 02/20 PERSONALquarterly side, advances in digitalization are being used to more tightly monitor the speed of people’s work in order to intensify it. Ama- zon warehouse workers are a case in point. Across the world, in multiple different countries, there have been accounts from these workers of 'hellish‘ conditions in which workers have to work with excessive speed and with no breaks. We are also seeing the increasing use of AI to make automated decisions, replacing professional judgement, which can disempower pro- fessionals. One more example is that introductions of automa- ted vehicles such as train drivers can mean that the drivers no longer have a meaningful job, with their jobs being the ‘left over’ tasks that can’t be automated. But there can be positive effects on work design too. For instance, one of our projects involves working with a team of medics who diagnose rare diseases, and the introduction of big data provides a world-wide data base, which in turn enhances the decision-making capability of the medics. Many of us oursel- ves use technology to increase our autonomy because we can in- creasingly work anywhere and anytime. And often, it’s the more boring work that’s replaced by robots, which can mean that the resulting work contains more complex and interesting tasks. PERSONALquarterly: So you are saying that new technologies can go either way, and have positive or negative effects on work design. What is it that shapes whether it is positive or negative, and can anything be done to increase the chance that technology will be positive for work design? Sharon K. Parker: The reason I get excited about the topic of work design is that it’s possible to change work designs to be more positive. So yes, it is absolutely the case that steps can be ta- ken to improve the quality of work when new technologies are introduced. First, when technology is being introduced, it is important to think about what the quality of the work might be like, and make an effort to design better jobs. Unfortunately, the quality of work is usually an afterthought, as implementers often focus their efforts on ‘what can the technology do?’ and then assign the tasks that can’t be done by machines to people. This ‘left over’ approach is a poor way to design a system. In a nutshell, we need to bring back the sociotechnical systems approach that was introduced in the 1950s. This approach means to think about work and human roles (the ‘socio’) alongside the ‘technical‘ when designing a work system, instead of focusing mostly on the technical aspects, with the social aspects as a last consideration, as is sadly the common approach today. Second, if we want there to be better work when technology is introduced, we actually need to go further up the food chain, and think about people and the work when designing new sys- tems. Unfortunately, it is often the case that new systems and technologies are designed by engineers and IT people, with less attention to how the machine or system will actually be used SHARON K. PARKER Curtin University E-Mail: S.Parker@curtin.edu.au Sharon K. Parker is an ARC Laureate Fellow, Director of the Centre for Transformative Work Design at Curtin University, a Professor of Organizational Behavior at the Curtin Faculty of Business and Law an Honorary fellow at the University of West­ ern Australia, and an Honorary Professor at the University of Sheffield where she was previously Director at the Institute of Work Psychology. She is a recipient of the ARC’s Kathleen Fitz­ patrick Award, and the Academy of Management OB Division Mentoring Award. Her research focuses particularly on job and work design, and she is also interested in employee perfor­ mance and development, especially their proactive behaviour. She has published more than 100 internationally refereed articles, including publications in top tier journals such as the Journal of Applied Psychology, Academy of Management Jour­ nal, Academy of Management Review, and the Annual Review of Psychology on these topics. Professor Parker is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Social Sciences, and a Fellow of the Society for Industrial and Organisational Psychology. She has at­ tracted competitive research funding worth over $40,000,000, and has worked as a researcher and consultant in a wide range of public and private organizations.