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.
UK bank RBS will reduce its workforce by 550 jobs. The job losses will occur in two areas of the bank: investment advice and protection. A total of 220 jobs will be lost from the investment advice team. A further 200 jobs will be lost from investment protection along with 80 administrative support roles. The decision to introduce this automated service results from the bank finding it unprofitable to provide face-to-face advice to customers with less than £250,000 (approx. €323,000 ) to invest. The work that was formerly undertaken by the advisers will now be undertaken by ‘robo-advisers’ – a new automated system that will provide advice to customers based on their responses to a series of questions. RBS, which was bailed out by the UK Government during the financial crisis and remains 78 per cent tax-payer owned, is attempting to reduce costs after its eighth successive annual loss was announced in February 2016, putting the company’s debt at £2 billion (approx. €2.6 billion).
Eurofound (2016), RBS, Internal restructuring in United Kingdom, factsheet number 86762, European Restructuring Monitor. Dublin, https://restructuringeventsprod.azurewebsites.net/restructuring-events/detail/86762.