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.
Norwich Union, an insurance firm, has announced that it is to cut 500 jobs from its York office. No further data is available on how many people will remain at the company’s York office, or when the jobs will be cut. The company stated that the job losses were as a result of outsourcing the back office administration for its Lifetime Wrap IT platform to Scottish Friendly in Glasgow. The Lifetime Wrap department, which administers investors' portfolios online, currently employs 300 people in York. The other department to be ousourced is the Collective Investments Administration Unit, which employs 200 people in the York office, and this will be outsourced to International Financial Data Services in Basildon in Essex.
Both company management and union representatives (Unite) have both indicated that they are seeking to minimise the level of compulsory redundancies required in the restructuring.
Eurofound (2008), Norwich Union, Outsourcing in United Kingdom, factsheet number 66942, European Restructuring Monitor. Dublin, https://restructuringeventsprod.azurewebsites.net/restructuring-events/detail/66942.