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.
The Danish insurance, pension and banking group, Alm. Brand, cuts 7% of the workforce. On 30 January 2020 the group presented its 2019 financial statements, which contained the announcement that it would dismiss 120 employees who had already been notified during the same morning. Alm. Brand stated that the restructuring affected mainly staff functions at the headquaters in the Port of Copenhagen. The dismissals are a result of the group 'reinventing the financial supermarket' and that the CEO will integrate the three business legs to a greater extent by cross-selling to customers, where it was previously only the insurance part that took care of the insurance customers and so on. Thus, it has been possible to combine more staff functions and also due to IT investments and automation, the company needs fewer employees.
Eurofound (2020), Alm. Brand, Internal restructuring in Denmark, factsheet number 99855, European Restructuring Monitor. Dublin, https://restructuringeventsprod.azurewebsites.net/restructuring-events/detail/99855.