Ethics in the digital workplace
Digitisation and automation technologies, including artificial intelligence (AI), can affect working conditions in a variety of ways and their use in the workplace raises a host of new ethical concerns.
The AA, the roadside recovery organization is to cut 280 jobs by closing one of its offices and transferring work from another. An office at Maidstone, Kent, which employs 154 staff answering emergency breakdown calls, will close. Administrative work will transfer from Basingstoke, Hampshire, to Cheadle, Cheshire, leading to around 129 job losses.
The AA also announced it was to keep its roadside and insurance call centre operations in Britain rather than switching the work overseas, even though it could save £50 million by offshoring. A study had found that 'significant savings' could have been made if the call centre work had been moved offshore. But the AA said it believed it could improve customer service and the efficiency of its operations by remaining in the UK. Around £10 million will be invested at the AA's insurance call centres in Newcastle and Cardiff.
Eurofound (2005), AA, Relocation in United Kingdom, factsheet number 61786, European Restructuring Monitor. Dublin, https://restructuringeventsprod.azurewebsites.net/restructuring-events/detail/61786.