Moving forward on Digitalisation with EPSU

On the 24th October, the Social Employers and the European Federation of Public Service Unions (EPSU) held a Thematic Seminar on “Digitalisation in Social Services: Defining opportunities for social partners, barriers and how to prepare for the future”.

On Wednesday 24th October, the Social Employers and the European Federation of Public Service Unions co-organised a Thematic Seminar on “Digitalisation in Social Services: Defining opportunities for social partners, barriers and how to prepare for the future”.

Supported by experts from the European Commission, Eurofound, research institutions and practical examples, the participants engaged in the process of jointly identifying the challenges and opportunities posed by digitalisation, as well as the building blocks for what both organisations could jointly develop together in the future.

Three main challenges emerged throughout the day:

  • How to manage concerns linked to data storage, ownership and security;
  • How to deal with the additional and changing digital training needs of workers and managers;
  • How to ensure that digitalisation improves and does not hinder physical and mental health in the workplace.

Concluding the day for the Social Employers, Mr Gregor Tomschizek, President, said “employers and unions see the potential that digitalisation has to offer the social services sector, such as to improve administrative procedures or supportive technology for home care work. Whilst considering these benefits, we cannot miss sight of the risks too; linked for instance to managing data, dealing with the additional digital training needs of all workers and physical and mental health implications. These could be the first points for future work on digitalisation between the Social Employers and EPSU in the months to come”.

Both the Social Employers and EPSU have already agreed to follow-up bilaterally to develop a joint work-plan on digitalisation. They also agreed to organise a joint Thematic Seminar on “Job Creation, Recruitment and Retention in Social Services” with a date expected to be in February 2019.