Intelligent Work: Person Centered Operations, Worker Wellness and the Triple Bottom Line

Abstract

Work has an important role in terms of promoting wellbeing. However, it can also have negative effects on our physical and mental wellbeing leading to stress, fatigue, poor teamwork and engagement, and burnout. Many companies treat workers in terms of enterprise resources. Operations management often overlooks the ‘human factor’ and specifically, the relationship between worker wellbeing and performance, and the design of work management processes and associated technologies to support this. The impact of new work and workforce practices/trends such as the blended and flexible workforce along with new automation and artificial intelligence (AI) technologies enabling business process, performance/work, and workforce management, presents both risks and opportunities. This paper introduces a new work management concept – namely, ‘intelligent work’. Intelligent work is defined in relation to work that is smart, health, ethical and safe. Critically, it is underpinned by concepts of workplace health protection and promotion, along with progress in automation and AI technologies. This concept has been advanced a part of a human factors action research program addressing responsible business, sponsored by the Irish government.