Seminar series

This seminar explored employee and individual perspectives on monitoring data to examine employee health and wellbeing. It assessed issues related to employee surveillance and individual ownership of data as well as more critical perspectives on the need for an individual perspective on wellbeing that complements a more data driven approach.

Speakers

• Professor Bridgette Wessels, Newcastle University; ‘Introduction to seminar and framing the use of big data for wellbeing from employee perspectives’

• Dr Yvonne Dittrich, IT-University of Copenhagen; ‘Big data for collaborative decision making’

• Andy Dodman, Human Resources Department, University of Sheffield & Maureen Howard, Representing University Unions; ‘Staff wellbeing: The employer and employee perspective’

• Professor Sara Eriksén, Blekinge Institute of Technology, Sweden; ‘Designing for accountability in the age of big data’

• Liz Robson, Newcastle University; ‘Enacting the internet and social media on the public sector’s frontline’

Materials

A summary of our discussions from this seminar (PDF, 183KB).

Professor Bridgette Wessels

Introduction to seminar and framing the use of big data for wellbeing from employee perspectives

• Professor Bridgette Wessels’ presentation (PDF, 625KB)

• Interview with Professor Bridgette Wessels

Abstract:

This talk will consider some of the key issues surrounding the possible usage of big data for employee wellbeing from employees’ perspectives. The talk will outline some established approaches to employee wellbeing as well as a more general range of healthy living initiatives. This will identify how the responsibility for health has been – and continues to be – negotiated between health care professionals and individuals.

It will then consider the rise of the use of data in healthcare both by professionals and individuals, examples include telehealth and health apps, which is often termed as the quantified self. This will identify how boundaries and responsibilities are shifting and how that might inform and developments in the use of big data for employee wellbeing.

Working with themes from these cases such as accountability, work practice, participation and transparency the paper will start to consider a framework for undertaking research in this area. The framework will take into account HR and Union influences in the work place in relation to employee positions.

Dr Yvonne Dittrich

Big Data for collaborative decision making

• Dr Yvonne Dittrich’s presentation (PDF, 3.7MB)

• Interview with Dr Yvonne Dittrich

Abstract:

Big and Open Data combined with data analytics promises a better understanding of the social and the identification of both positive and negative trends as well as the identification of indicators and causal relationships that can be used to manage organisations and improve government.

Based on an empirical project on data driven decision making in urban renewal, the talk will discuss how decision are made and how data analytics can be brought to bear on collaborative and participative decision making.

Andy Dodman and Maureen Howard

Staff wellbeing: The employer and employee perspective

• Andy and Maureen’s presentation (PDF, 860KB)

• Interview with Andy Dodman

• Interview with Maureen Howard

Abstract:

This talk will consider how UK employers traditionally manage employee health and wellbeing and how this affects data capture, management reporting and strategy. It will share how the University of Sheffield has adopted a very different approach to staff wellbeing.

We will consider the underpinning values, its use of technology and how this has influenced the organisational approach to wellbeing and its data collection and management.

Professor Sara Eriksén

Designing for accountability in the age of Big Data

• Professor Sara Eriksén’s presentation (PDF, 817KB)

• Interview with Professor Sara Eriksén

Abstract:

Ethnomethodology has provided us with methods and tools for exploring the ways in which people make sense of their everyday world, and through which they make their actions accountable to themselves and to each other, as members of a group, a team, a work organisation and of the various other communities of practice of which they are a part.

The Scandinavian tradition of Participatory Design looks to how people who will be affected by technological change can be given a say in the design of new technologies for the workplace (and beyond). How can Big Data support the constantly on-going social construction of accountability – of sense-making – in everyday work?

Using examples from an ongoing research and development project which focuses on innovative mobile technologies for transforming healthcare provision, this talk will explore some of the risks and potentials of ICT as it is used in healthcare organisations today, how this might be affecting employee health and well-being, and how Big Data might be utilised to make a difference.

Liz Robson

Enacting the internet and social media on the public sector’s frontline

• Liz Robson’s presentation (PDF, 369KB)

• Interview with Liz Robson

Abstract:

This talk draws on an empirical research project that focused on youth workers and how they used the internet and social media to engage and communicate with their ‘digitally savvy’ client group. In some cases the clients were vulnerable and trust was a key relational component between the organisation, the practitioner and clients. Layering new virtual channels of interaction are adding change and complexity in a wider social context where ‘norms’ of using social media are yet to be established and still often clouded by moral panic.