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.
Diageo, one of the major manufacturers and retailers of alcoholic beverages, is to dismiss 300 employees from its Hungarian business service centre due to a major internal restructuring programme. While most of the jobs will be lost, some of them will be relocated to Manila (The Philippines) to another business service centre. Although the restructuring is scheduled to start from the second half of 2009 only, the company has already initiated negotiations with the works council. With this move, Diageo plans to save approximately GBP 100 million (EUR 111 million) per year.
Set up in July 2001, the Hungarian centre deals with a number of back-office accounting functions, including statutory and management reporting, ordering goods and services, processing invoices and orders and collecting payments. The Budapest-based centre also manages financial processes for the company's Global Duty Free shops. Diageo, with headquarters in London, was established in 1997 by the merger of Guinness and GrandMet.
Eurofound (2009), Diageo, Internal restructuring in Hungary, factsheet number 68793, European Restructuring Monitor. Dublin, https://restructuringeventsprod.azurewebsites.net/restructuring-events/detail/68793.