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.
Coolblue, one of the biggest electronics and household appliances (web)stores in the Netherlands, will hire 1,200 couriers and 835 installers. Coolblue uses its couriers to deliver (smaller) products within cities on a bicycle. With the additional couriers, the expectation is that in 2020 Coolblue will deliver one million products on bicycles. The installers positions, which have been vacant since May last year, have to install large products, ranging from televisions to solar panels, at customers' homes. This is a feature that is becoming more important for Coolblue. The company has decided that Coolblue will start training new forces itself, partly from the pool of 897 deliverers that Coolblue already has.
Coolblue expanded its workforce in 2017 by hiring 1,000 couriers.
Eurofound (2020), Coolblue, Business expansion in Netherlands, factsheet number 99825, European Restructuring Monitor. Dublin, https://restructuringeventsprod.azurewebsites.net/restructuring-events/detail/99825.