A coherent use of technology at work

This post is also available in: Spanish

Days ago, a new released the agreement in France to limit the worker´s access to the corporate e-mail and other services (WhatsApp, LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook,…) in order to communicate with the company once the labour journey finished.

I don´t know what you´ll think about, but the new surprised me in some way, more than for the details of the agreement (which may bring lots of opinions) for the fact of the new itself, which is a mayor attempt to find the way to manage the professional use of information and communication technology, that just a few seem to understand: neither the administrations with their rules and schemes or the enterprises by applying suitable organizational models.

Meanwhile, as technology evolves, the vacuum around it becomes bigger and bigger when it comes to the professional area.

A proper ICT´s management brings benefits for all: competitivity and productivity for the company; improved labor conditions for the worker. But it may also bring the contrary, an inappropriate treatment of this factor that becomes into a loop of disputes with a difficult solution.

Let´s be clear, if a company is not able to manage properly its staff´s use of their smartphones and apps during the working time, it won´t be able to deal with it off work.

In this context, what may bring a responsible perform of work meeting the desired concepts of flexible job based on the mutual confidence reaching even the mythical work-life balance, ends in worker´s permanent physical and mental connection (24/7) with an usually challenging work which invades the personal sphere and fosters factors like labor insecurity or the sensation of permanent surveillance.

I focus in the negative point of view since are precisely these psychosocial risks factors what are prevailing as a consequence of the implementation of ICTs in life and the organizations. They are not improving the enterprises´organization but are just a tool making more complex the labor relationships between the company and the staff for the lack of solvency in its comprehension and use.

Therefore, the 2014-15 EU-OSHAS´s campaign on stress and psychosocial risks management comes in an opportune time and all, enterprises and workers have a lot to learn, among other things, about the coherent use of technology at our work development.