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.
Telekom Slovenije, based in Ljubljana (Osrednjeslovenska region), the largest telecommunication company in Slovenia, also operates through its subsidiaries on the markets of South-Eastern Europe in Kosovo, Macedonia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Montenegro and Germany. Its activities include fixed and mobile communications services, digital content and services, multimedia services and digital advertising, system integration and cloud computing services, construction and maintenance of telecommunications networks, and conservation of natural and cultural heritage in the Sečovlje Saltpans Regional Park.
The company announced that it will cut 800 jobs by the end of 2018. On 21 July 2015, the company's management and trade union signed an agreement on the reduction of 230 jobs by the end of this year. Dismissal criteria are annual evaluations of employees in the last year. The management has invited older workers, two years before fulfilling the retirement requirements, and others, to voluntarily leave the job. Volunteers are offered a double severance pay. The remaining redundant workers will be selected among those with the worst annual evaluations in the year 2014.
The company, which is currently state owned, is about to be privatised. Sale negotiations of the company to Cinven have been interrupted, but they will most certainly restart in autumn.
Eurofound (2015), Telekom Slovenije, Internal restructuring in Slovenia, factsheet number 84376, European Restructuring Monitor. Dublin, https://restructuringeventsprod.azurewebsites.net/restructuring-events/detail/84376.