Digital tools are profoundly transforming work, in its forms, content and organization: they are redefining the skills used, recomposing relationships and work relations, shaking up the boundaries between professional and private life, and more broadly questioning working conditions.
This digital transformation brings with it new opportunities for less strenuous and less repetitive jobs, the promise of autonomy and easier access to skills upgrading, but it also brings with it accelerated obsolescence of skills, new health risks linked to hyper-connectivity and the interpenetration of professional and personal spaces.
The digital transformation is also giving rise to the emergence of new forms of work, linked to the collaborative economy, while releasing powerful dynamics of task fragmentation: "digital labor " and "job-sharing".
Digital at work: more than half of employed people use a computer every day
In 2017, according to the Digital Barometer (co-funded by the Agence du Numérique) 66% of employed people (salaried or non-salaried) used a computer at their workplace (only 53% in 2013).The proportion of employed workers who used a computer every day at work increased from 46 percent in 2013 to 54 percent in 2017.
The socio-professional category reveals very clear divisions: more than eight out of ten executives or higher intellectual professions declare using a computer every day at work, compared to less than one worker in five.
The same is true for the level of education: 75% of university graduates use a computer every day at work, compared to 17% of blue-collar workers.
Read more: Digital at work: more than half of employed people use a computer every day
More than half of French employees believe they are not well supported in the digital transformation
The 2018 Digital Workplace barometer (Julhiet Sterwen in partnership with Ifop) aims to measure the perception of employees of companies with more than 500 employees about digital transformation. If the digital transformation seems to be experienced rather positively, this survey highlights expectations and frustrations.- 63% of employees say they are "experiencing a digital revolution" (74% of managers, 58% of non-managers)
- The changes are perceived more positively by managers (74% positive responses) than by non-managers (58%).
- Among the main obstacles to the digital transformation of work, 33% of employees surveyed mention the poor quality of networks and 27% the multiplicity of tools and equipment that are not always adapted.
- 58% of employees are in favor of telecommuting, but only 7% would do so. (Only 35% of them, it is true, are equipped with laptops and cell phones).
- 76% believe that with digital technology, "you have to be more responsive"
- 68% believe that digital technology allows them to acquire new skills
- 61% feel that they have a greater workload with digital technology
- 27% feel that the relationship with their team is weakening
- 47% of employees feel they have more leaders or referents than before
25% of employees telecommute
The reality of telework in France is difficult to grasp. Estimates differ widely depending on the definition of telework given in the different studies: telework (and its various modalities: itinerant, nomadic or mobile work) or telework in the strict sense of the term, as defined by a company agreement or charter.According to a survey carried out by IFOP among 1500 employees and 40 to company managers for Malakoff Mederic (management of complementary retirement and personal insurance) contractualized telework concerns only 6% of employees, while 19% of employees work remotely in an informal and non-contractualized way.
57% of teleworkers work remotely at least one day a week. 47% work from home at least one day a week (48% of home-based teleworkers have a dedicated room). Alternative locations are also used: shared workspaces (23% work there at least one day a week) or satellite offices (22%).
Read more: 25% of employees telework
200,000 workers in the collaborative economy?
In recent years, multiple digital platforms have developed (Airbnb, Deliveroo, Uber, etc.), presenting themselves as new types of intermediaries between clients and providers of work. The rise of these new kinds of companies has generated a strong media fascination, which is reflected today in the polarization of debates between the apology of the "collaborative economy" and the denunciation of the damaging effects of "uberization" on work and employment. Some of these new economic actors have become multinational firms in just a few years, generating colossal sales figures, and have become emblems of the new digital economy. And behind this economic model, which is considered innovative, a fundamental characteristic characterizes this new type of economic transaction: the people who offer work are sometimes, even often, private individuals, that is to say, they are not employees, nor even necessarily professionals. They are the ones who own the work tool, or the work force, which they sell as independents, either directly to consumers or to an intermediary.While many surveys have been conducted over the past two years to measure the impact of the collaborative economy, from a usage perspective, the impact of the collaborative economy on employment remains largely unknown.
Read more: Does the collaborative economy create jobs?
Jobbing" platforms stimulate the growth of "small jobs
If the practice of "odd jobs" is old, a new generation of platforms now makes it possible to connect and match a demand (which originates in the desire of individuals to entrust, due to lack of time or skills, assignments to available candidates) and an offer (which can come from people with different motivations and skills: employees, self-employed, students, retirees).Jobijoba, a company specializing in online job searches in France, has released a study dedicated to the supply of odd jobs in France, drawn from an analysis of one million online job offers in June 2018 on the jobijoba.com website.
- There were 104,714 ads for pay-for-work or per-assignment jobs as of June 2018, which represents 10% of all online job postings.
- Moving-doing-gardening is (as in 2017) the most offered category of assignment on the Jobbing market with 61% of the offers, ahead of babysitting (30%) and cleaning (4%).
- Jobbers are looking for cleaning and personal assistance (16%), tutoring (16%), event hosting (15%), babysitting (14%) and pet sitting (14%).
- The Ile-de-France region accounts for 17% of the small job offers, followed by Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes (13%), Hauts de France (11%), Nouvelle Aquitaine (8.5%), Occitanie (8%) and Grand Est (8%).
- The diploma and the experience are not determining in the recruitment for the missions of Jobbing. The availability of the candidates remains a priority.
- Assignments are mainly paid on a per job or per hour basis.
More than 250,000 "micro-clickers" in France
Three researchers from CNRS, MSH Paris Saclay and Télécom ParisTech have just published a study that estimates for the first time the number of click workers in France. According to the authors, Clément le Ludec, Paola Tubaro and Antonio Casilli, " these tasks are often part of data-intensive processes and long logistical chains, feeding activities as varied as the digitization of archives, market research, the management of back-office operations, and above all the development of artificial intelligence. Micro-work is used, on the one hand, to qualify the information needed for these machine learning algorithms and, on the other hand, to control the quality of the results and, if necessary, to make corrections.In order to estimate the number of people involved in micro-working in France, the authors combined three methods: taking into account the numbers reported by the platforms that recruit in France, posting job offers on the platforms to see who responded, and finally measuring the audience of these platforms.
They thus detect three patterns of involvement in these activities, which correspond to three pools of users of micro-work platforms
- a group of 14,903 "very active" micro-workers, as they are present on micro-work platforms at least once a week
- a second one of 52,337 regular users, more selective and present at least once a month;
- a third group of 266,126 workers who they consider to be casual.
What the "Working Conditions" surveys tell us
The main source of information on the use of digital tools in the workplace is the Working Conditions survey, conducted by INSEE and the Ministry of Labor's Directorate for Research, Studies and Statistics (DARES). This survey covers all employed persons. The survey is now carried out as a panel every three years, alternating between a "working conditions" focus (2013 and 2019) and a "psychosocial risks" focus (the first edition of which took place in 2015-2016).In 2013, 71.1% of employees used a digital tool for work purposes (fixed computer - including terminal or console -, laptop, email, Internet, an intranet). 57.1% of them used a fixed computer during their working day and 23.8% a laptop.
- However, the use of laptops was very unevenly distributed among the different socio-professional categories: 61% of executives used one, compared to 12% of administrative employees and 3% of unskilled workers.
- Despite this very large increase, 30.9% of employees in 2013 did not use any computer or digital equipment in their work.
- According to the DARES, "the use of digital tools for mobile work is strongly correlated with a high workload and mental workload, as well as frequent situations of work spilling over into the private sphere. These demanding working conditions are nevertheless counterbalanced by greater autonomy and rewarded by a strong sense of professional recognition.
Read more: INSEE's new "Working Conditions" survey will shed light on the use of digital technology at work
