'Removing it from the draw’ – worker resistance and engagement with new technology in social care: Ian Cunningham, University of Strathclyde; Alina Baluch, University of St Andrews; Philip James, Middlesex University; Donna Baines, University of British Columbia; Kendra Briken, University of Strathclyde
Event Date: 27 April 2022
Speakers: Ian Cunningham (Department of Work, Employment and Organisation, University of Strathclyde), Alina Baluch (School of Management, University of St Andrews), Philip James (The Business School, Middlesex University), Donna Baines (University of British Columbia), Kendra Briken (Department of Work, Employment and Organisation, University of Strathclyde)
Venue: Online
Time: 14:00 - 15:00
Registration Contact: sbs-weo@strath.ac.uk
The neo-liberal agenda of austerity-driven public expenditure cuts on social care (Gillingham & Graham, 2016; Dowling 2021), has included digital technologies in its suite of cost saving tools. Such technology has mainly been used to deliver management goals of efficiency, savings, and forms of control. Biomechanical devices substitute for labour to cut costs, impacting on service and job quality, and signficantly reducing relational, face-to-face interactions between workers and service users which cannot be replaced or even augmented by remotes, sensors and robots (Hester, 2018). Work surveillance and monitoring tools lead to the further ‘Taylorisation’ of work. Digital devices increase time and task discipline, intensifying work and disassembling the relational elements of care into measurable outputs (Rubery et al, 2015; Hayes & Moore, 2017; McDonald, et al, 2019). The market- oriented use of technologies must also be viewed against a highly gendered and increasingly racialized workforce, and the ongoing framing of care as a naturalised female characteristic (Baines et al, 2016; Fraser 2017). There are various points at which workers have agency in work place struggles, one is when workplace change is first introduced. Workers frequently employ coping, delaying and disruption strategies and may simultaneously build collective resistance through trade unions. Little is known about worker compliance and resistance in the roll out of social care technologies. Available studies point out that research on technology acceptance needs to focus on contextual factors, e.g. fit with care delivery (Jansen-Kosterink, et al, 2019).
The purpose of this paper is to explore changes to work, worker attitudes and behaviors towards the introduction of new technology, the basis of their resistance and where it can succeed to prevent degradation in employment conditions. The study is the result of a three-year longitudinal, qualitative evaluation of change management in a social care organization. The type of technology under focus are digital devices that are associated with introducing time and task discipline, work surveillance and monitoring, and the ‘Taylorisation’ of work. It reveals how despite two years of efforts and investment of financial resources, management time and training, outside of a few teams, large groups of workers steadfastly ignored and refused to engage with the technology. A postscript to this longitudinal study, however, is that management reinvigorated their efforts to introduce technology once the pandemic hit. This led to workers literally removing the technology from the draw and engaging with it. The paper is concerned with exploring the reasons for worker resistance to introducing technology, whether the successful effort from the start of COVID-19 represents a continuation of intensification, surveillance and degradation in relational elements of care, and what role the gendered nature of the sector might play as a contextual factor.
Published: 26 April 2022
