How to create the conditions for success through the meaning of work
Elodie Chevallier[1] and Jean-Claude Coallier[2]
The technological revolution is impacting society as a whole, as well as work organisations. The term ‘digital transformation’ is used to describe the arrival of new technologies in daily work activities. Indeed, technology allows for more flexible organisations by making it possible, for example, to work remotely or by getting employees to interact in digital spaces (via corporate social networks) or atypical spaces (open space). Companies see these technological developments as an opportunity to instil a new organisational culture and new working practices. However, several authors share the observation that the contribution of digital tools alone cannot bring about an organisational and cultural transformation, and that this belief leads to the failure of many work digitalisation projects. This article presents a review of the literature that sheds light on the necessary conditions for the adoption and appropriation of new technologies so as to bring about a change in professional practices and organisational culture.
1. The main causes of failure of digital work transformations
Over the last ten years or so, we have witnessed a wave of work digitalisation that is unfolding both radically and progressively in organisations (Doran and Ryan, 2014). These transformations, which very often go beyond the modernisation of work tools, are leading to a rethinking of the organisation and culture of work. Presented as the new revolution in work, digitalisation is also the cause of many disappointments, which are rooted in various explanatory factors such as the technical difficulties of implementation, the users’ lack of understanding of the purpose of the tools, and their impact on the nature of work.
1.1. Failures related to the technical implementation of devices
The most obvious reason for the failure of a digital transformation is the technical risk that this type of solution represents. Indeed, digital transformation, whether radical or gradual, frequently requires the implementation of a large number of new digital tools which must, paradoxically, be operational on the field and allow for continuity of work in relation to the old tools (Doran and Ryan, 2014). Bobillier-Chaumon et al. (2019, p. 20) note a first factor of failure ‘in the tensions that these devices generate in the accomplishment of the activity, because of unsuitable, useless, unusable technologies, which contribute to the intensification of work’. Indeed, it is enough to observe but a few cases where the defectiveness of the new tools is questioned to conclude that some of them, whether functional or not, remain unsuitable or even counter-productive. This is what leads Benedetto-Meyer and Klein (2018) to point out certain cases where the importance of existing systems prevents the proper implementation of the new system’s functions.
1.2. Failures linked to a lack of understanding of the tool’s purpose
Another difficulty that appears in the implementation of digital transformation systems lies in the fact that these new tools, which are usually accompanied by the expectation that a collaborative work dynamic may spontaneously emerge, are often confronted with a lack of understanding of the fundamentals required (Boboc, 2017), a lack of support for their implementation (Meyer and Klein, 2017), or anunclear communicated of the aims and expectations of organisational transformation (Chevallier and Coallier, 2020).
In this sense, the work of Caby-Guillet et al. (2012) and Ologeanu-Taddei et al. (2014) confirms that it is difficult to implement usage in organisations the functioning of which is not conducive to speaking out, sharing knowledge, or making oneself visible.
1.3. Failures related to the impact on the nature of work
Bobillier-Chaumon et al. (2019) note that technology can create tensions among users when it creates contradictions regarding the rules of the profession or quality criteria that prevent work from being well done. These are then problems and renunciations that professionals will have to regulate or overcome, in the best of cases, or with which they will have to cope, in the worst of cases. In this sense, Bobillier-Chaumon (2013) relates how the introduction of a technology acting as a monitoring device for elderly people had the effect of causing caregivers to focus more on scheduled domestic tasks and, as a result, partially depriving residents of real human contact, under the pretext that their safety was ensured through a remote-control medium. In such a situation, the workers may feel that they are losing control of the relationship with the users and, hence, that their work is losing its meaning. This situation illustrates how technology can directly impact on the nature and purpose of work.
Barnier and Chekkar (2017) highlight the impacts that new technologies can have on human relations in the organisation. In this review, they note that many of the tools developed can contribute positively to reducing the need for interactions through human contact. However, such an approach advocating virtual networks is sometimes considered by workers as an instrument that serves the rationalising logics of organisations that aim to reduce the human cost of work, impoverishing it, reducing the margins of autonomy, and increasing control (Askenazy, 1998, 2006).
The digital transformation of work can, at times, be perceived as a form of rationalisation of work (with reference to Fordism or Taylorism), depriving work of the interest it might represent in performing tasks (Mayère, 2016). Gomez (2017), on the other hand, refers to the gradual emergence of a certain movement of employee resistance to such hyper-rationalisation of work, in which workers
[…] have reinvested the ‘private’ forms of work to regain control over their activities and find a new opportunity to give meaning to their efforts. This has led them to suffer the negative effects of companies, such as ‘bore out’ (realisation that work is boring), ‘brown out’ (realisation that work is pointless) and even ‘burn out’ (unbearable work) (p. 39).
As Boboc (2017) points out, digitalisation can give individuals a great deal of flexibility and autonomy in organising and carrying out their work. Thus, in some circumstances it can be a factor of work enrichment. According to him, ‘digitalisation could support the expressive dimension of work, as individuals are led to show initiative and creativity in their work, using digital tools and playing their game to be more responsive and proactive’ (p. 5). Boboc indicates, however, that the collaborative tools that accompany the digital transformation of work are dependent on the particular operating conditions specific to each local work context: ‘In this “jumble” of tools, activities and coordination, the added value of these tools is therefore to be sought increasingly in very local contexts, because their appropriation requires time and is intimately linked to the activity of individuals’ (p. 6). Hence, it is up to each individual, depending on his or her own practice, to judge the relevance or not of the available digital tools, and so it is difficult to draw up laws that can be generalised to all organisational contexts.
2. The challenges of support in the face of the digitalisation of the workplace
The wave of digital transformation expanding within companies is not without consequences for workers. Presented as a new way of working and thinking about work, the research results presented above show that digitalisation can be a source of enrichment as well as impoverishment of work, calling for the explanation of work psychologists, human resources experts, and other actors in the field.
Bobillier-Chaumon et al. (2019) thus support the idea that digital transformation can lead to two antinomic outcomes. The first of these holds the principle of the ‘prescription of rationality’ model —which Taylor dreamed of—, consisting in recovering the control over work that eluded such control, standardising work behaviours by means of highly prescriptive technologies, or even constantly monitoring and evaluating work and its quality by means of panoptic and discrete systems. The second outcome, for its part, is based on a perspective that advocates the ‘prescription of subjectivity’; in other words, technology is used to encourage autonomy, foster a spirit of innovation and initiative, and induce new forms of collective intelligence (for example, with digital social networks, collaborative platforms, knowledge management tools). The objective is to increase the intangible capital and cognitive productivity of the company. Faced with such challenges, the professional coach has a privileged opportunity to take measures to design, facilitate, and deploy these digital transformation projects. Indeed, the coach must intervene as closely as possible in these transformation processes in order to best articulate human efficiency and ingenuity with technological performance. The aim is to focus the worker’s role on tasks with higher added value (technical expertise, diagnosis, innovation/creativity, development of activity and skills, renewal of the profession, etc.) while relieving him of physically and cognitively arduous and unrewarding tasks. A preliminary analysis of the situation and the clinical nature of the activity (Clot, 2011) is therefore essential.
3. Successful digital transformation through meaning of work
Many authors, including Talukder (2014), identify different phases leading to successful digital work transformation: (a) acceptability (i.e., before the person has had the opportunity to handle the technology); (b) acceptance (once the individual has had the opportunity to handle the technology at least once); (c) appropriation (the technology is offered to the user so that he or she can integrate it into his or her ordinary functioning).
With regard to these three phases, it seems that the central issue of digital transformation is particularly that of acceptability. A distinction must therefore be made between ‘practical acceptability’, which encompasses ‘users’ impressions, attitudes and social and normative constraints leading them to choose or support the use of a given technology’, and ‘social acceptability’, which refers to people’s representations of a future technology or to impressions resulting from experiences in real situations with the technology (Bobillier-Chaumon et al., 2009, p. 355).
The notion of acceptance, for its part, is based primarily on the technology’s capability ‘to become integrated into the activity (by being useful, easy to use and accessible to as many people as possible, including people with special needs), but also on the capability to become embodied in that activity’ (Bobillier-Chaumon et al., 2019, p. 21). This implies that technology must ‘make sense’ for employees (in particular be useful for doing the job effectively and efficiently) and also ‘(re)make it significant’ by maintaining employees’ power to act, developing their skills, recognising their know-how, promoting initiative and autonomy, and revitalising the job.
Appropriation, the third phase of the technological implementation process, represents the moment when the individual chooses to use technology on a regular basis and consider it as an integral part of work. According to Benedetto Meyer and Klein (2017), technology can only find meaning and organisational incorporation in a progressive way, through a process of trial and error.
The notion of ‘meaning’ thus seems to be an inescapable element in the process of successful digital transformation (Lysova et al., 2019) and could, by the same token, constitute an innovative perspective of exploration for industrial and organisational psychologists in their work of analysis, diagnosis, and support of organisations wishing to carry out both a digital and a cultural transformation of their company.
Meaning at work is a polysemous concept, referring to different aspects of work such as the context in which it is carried out, the work environment, or the work activity. Morin and Aranha (2008), like Morin and Cherré (1999), identify six characteristics that enable a job to generate meaning:
- The sense of purpose it provides;
- Interest in the activities carried out;
- Respect for the rules of morality and ethics;
- Satisfactory human relations;
- Guaranteed financial independence;
- The possibility of a balance between personal and professional life.
Work is meaningful when there is a balance between these six characteristics. This balance is specific to each person, which means that the same work situation may be meaningful for some people, but not for others. Also, the balance of meaning of work can be altered by external events (a change in management, for example) or internal events (a change in one’s personal life). In the context of our literature review, it clearly appears that the implementation of new technologies in the workplace constitutes an external change likely to modify this balance. For the time being, such a relationship between technology and meaning of work remains a hypothesis that needs to be tested, on an occasion that could be shared by professionals and researchers concerned with the issues of the human-technology relationship (Bonaccio et al., 2013).
Conclusion
Our literature review has shown that the digital transformation of work represents a change in how organisations work and their culture, and such change must be supported to ensure its success. This poses a real challenge to human resources professionals, who must think beforehand how to control the ‘individual-machine’ relationship, a historical framework that can be pertinently translated into contemporary notions such as the acceptability, acceptance, and appropriation of new technologies. The challenge is how, despite the inevitable arrival of these technologies in the organisation, the worker may continue to be a homo faber (Arendt, 1961), i.e., someone who is engaged in an activity of creation, manufacture and development, and not an animal laborans (idem), i.e., someone who carries out meaningless work.
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