How Technology Impacts Work and Workers

Covering Assessment Criterion 1.4 of 5CO01, this video examines both the scale of technology in organisations and its concrete effects on the people who work within them. The discussion ranges across worker efficiency, wellbeing, collaboration, and job satisfaction, treating each as a distinct but interconnected dimension of the technology–work relationship. Specific attention is given to automation, remote and flexible working, always-on connectivity, and the phenomenon known as technostress, alongside the longer historical arc of how work has evolved through successive waves of technological change, from industrial-era factory systems through computerisation to current developments in artificial intelligence and robotics.

The video addresses the wellbeing implications of technology in particular depth, covering the boundary erosion between work and personal life that always-on systems can produce, the risks of overwork and burnout, and the anxiety some workers experience when adapting to continuous technological change. It also examines collaboration through social media and enterprise social networks, real-time and asynchronous tools, and the qualitative differences between technology-mediated and face-to-face interaction. The relationship between automation and job satisfaction receives direct treatment, including scenarios where removing routine tasks improves engagement and scenarios where it strips work of meaning or triggers concerns about skill obsolescence.

The historical trajectory of work and technology frames the forward-looking content on artificial intelligence and the extension of automation into cognitive tasks. Throughout, the video situates these dynamics within the responsibilities of people professionals, addressing how the human implications of technology adoption — including levels of support, policy design, and workforce planning — fall within the remit that AC 1.4 asks Level 5 learners to assess critically.