Digital work is the real frontier of EU digital transition

Digital work is growing rapidly in developed countries and will grow even more with the massive introduction of A.I. for managing organizations and workflows.

As tech occupations grow, hand in hand with increased productivity, the strategic role of digital technology and A.I. in increasing the capabilities of workers, jobs quality in terms of flexibility and well-being, and readiness of organizations and institutions to answer to individual and collective needs will also grow.

The spread of digital technology in jobs and its continuous updating will presumably reduce the burden of routine work while increasing expert , creative and platform work.

With the increase of jobs assigned through and destined for digital, the new competitive scenario will be the collection, analysis, access, control and management of labour data.

A scenario in which organizational, regulatory, economic and geopolitical issues are intertwined, changing the structure of work and relationships between companies and territories.

Countries and companies that understand better how to adapt to this context will be able to collaborate, cooperate, coordinate and compete in new ways, breaking down barriers and fences, and growing productivity, wages and added value.

In Europe, the share of work intermediated by digital technology and AI is still limited. In fact, Europe is lagging behind US and China in the development and adoption of proprietary digital technologies and A.I., partly due to a number of regulatory and labor market structure problems[1], and risk seeing rising inequalities between Northern and Southern countries in jobs quality and a delay in the European digital transition.

The spread of digital, A.I. , platforms and data, scenarios that are often problematized by regulators, can instead turn around some of Labor’s traditional [2]and emerging[3] problems, positioning Europe as a hub of talent, creativity and skills.

However, to position Europe successfully in this new scenario, it is necessary to abandon resistance and pessimism and quickly set some systemic actions by combining technology, regulatory innovation and organizational practices in order to:

1. Bring, through goals and codified information, more and more work to people, instead of people to work, wherever and with whomever they choose to work, bypassing country borders and rigid, informal and opaque intermediaries, so as to increase inclusion and access to talent.

2. Fostering an organization of work based on people’s skills and not on organizational charts, tenders, job roles, micro certifications that often trap work rather than qualify it.

3. Introduce a system of management and remuneration by objectives, through shared metrics, better suited to emerging forms of digital, expert, autonomous and creative work that complements, and over time surpasses remuneration by hours worked, better suited to routine and mechanical forms of work.

4. Imagine and implement with bilateral agreements a contract for digital work that is open-ended, equal for all, and usable across national borders, with a decent basic wage and strong protections independent of company, role, residence, and seniority, allowing autonomy, flexibility, and management simplicity for individuals and companies.

5. Ensure easy access to practical, theoretical and finalized online training for workers, throughout their working lives, regardless of company, role, status and origin.

How to make these changes happen quickly and sustainably? How to overcome resistance?

1. Actors whose action is not only oriented to immediate market needs but who look with interest at systemic thhems such as Labor and major social impact transitions must be mobilized.

2. There is a strong need to consistently mix operational and experimental activities. Changing the way we work, without being in the lab but facing clients and everyday problems, is very complex and difficult. However, it is essential to have a clear direction of development without losing touch with reality. On this point a sandbox for digital work would be very helpful.

3. There is also a need to educate business owners, policy makers and technologist on demographic flows, social changes, gender policies, organizational models, global trends, so that they fully understand changes at the systemic level and know how to anticipate them with appropriate actions by putting people at the center. Without an educational effort, transitions are likely to stall.

4. The digital transition for companies and people must be simplified with systemic initiatives, resulting of a clear conceptual framework, through the reduction of byzantine bureaucratic procedures and the alliance between institutions, social partners, public and private actors, for the establishment of systemic rules and the financing of accessible, simple and intuitive EU technology to better regulate EU labour market.

Technology and progress offer us the possibility of more productive, challenging and equal way of working.

A work in which people are more in control of the work and less subject to its control.

A work in which EU companies and institutions can also work together and develop organizational models that enable them to create increasingly personalized and unique services for Eu Citizens, overcoming nodes and monopolies that extract resources instead of generating new ones.

It is time to gather the many experiences and seeds of labor change that have sprung up spontaneously in recent years and connect them in a harmonious and forward-looking way to build a better and sustainable society, economy and environment.

Nicolo Boggian

Founder Whitelibra.com

[1] Labour regulation is still national

[2] Gender equality, bad jobs, low productivity, high informality

[3]Overloading, disconnection, great resignation, skills mismatch