APPG on the Future of Work - technology exposure and workers' wellbeing

As part of Matt Warman MP's Future of Work Review, this session will be exploring how exposure to workplace technologies impacts workers' wellbeing.

The adoption of new automation technologies and AI systems is happening rapidly across all sectors of the UK economy. Public discourse has tended to focus on, for example, wellbeing and health impacts of phone use on young people, or how workplace technologies are displacing jobs. Less attention has been given to how technologies that people are exposed to at work are impacting their quality of life.

It is important that this due attention is given, because the workplace is where people spend the greatest part of the day and are most likely to see and experience impacts from innovative technologies. It follows that having a better understanding of these impacts on workers is vital if we are to have a workforce that is healthy and happy.

For some, the ability to work more flexibly and remotely might be seen to be a boon; for others - like those in warehouse work, in the gig economy, or under close surveillance - new technologies may be having negative impacts.

What policies and management practices should be adopted to ensure that innovation does not mean a less happy, less healthy workforce? APPG Co-Chair Matt Warman MP will be joined by a panel of experts to discuss the way ahead, including:

• Nancy Hey of the What Works Well Centre for Wellbeing
• Professor Jolene Skordis, Director of UCL’s Centre for Global Health Economics
• Professor Francis Green, Professor of Work and Education Economics at UCL's Institute of Education
• Professor Helen Bevan, Professor of Practice for Health and Social Care Service Improvement at Warwick Business School.

Informing the discussion will be new research undertaken as part of the Pissarides Review into the Future of Work and Wellbeing, funded by the Nuffield Foundation, that surveyed nearly 5000 UK workers, aiming to understand their experience of technology adoption and its impacts - both positive and negative - on their wellbeing.

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