Due to the demographic development, social services are implementing welfare technology as one strategy to meet the increased demand for welfare services. Automation in terms of robots and AI are introduced to handle work tasks previously performed by employees. This development has raised a number of questions among practitioners and academics, and little is known of how to implement new technology in the best way, or what the consequences are for employees and users.
This talk will introduce an ongoing research program at Umeå University funded by FORTE that aims to study the implementation of automation in Swedish social services from an organizational and user perspective. The program will examine how automation can be successfully implemented in the social services, how it affect employees, the role of leadership, and consequences for users.
An overview of the research design and work packages in the research program will be presented. In addition, we will share some preliminary findings with focus on implementation and the role of leadership when introducing automation in the social services.
Susanne Tafvelin, associate professor, Department of Psychology, Umeå University
Andreas Stenling, Department of Psychology, Umeå University
Robyn Schimmer, post doc, Department of Psychology, Umeå University
Maria Forsgren, PhD student, Department of Psychology, Umeå University