Technological change and its impact on employment relations

Technological change sits at the heart of this video's examination of AC 2.2 from 7HR01, which asks students to review employment relations practice at organisational level and consider how short-term competitive pressures shape it. The video addresses automation, artificial intelligence, and digitalisation as forces reshaping job content, work organisation and the psychological contract between employers and employees. Rather than treating these as background context, the video positions them as direct drivers of employment relations decision-making, including how organisations respond to workforce resistance, manage trust, and maintain employee engagement during periods of significant operational change.

The video gives particular attention to algorithmic management systems and the questions of dignity, autonomy and fairness they raise for the employment relationship. Platform work and the gig economy are examined through the concept of the fissured workplace, which brings with it questions about legal status, voice mechanisms and employment standards where organisational boundaries have become blurred. Remote and hybrid working appears as a third strand of technological transformation, with the video considering how physical dispersal from a shared workplace affects collective organisation, surveillance, work-life boundaries and the practical definition of what constitutes a workplace in contemporary employment relations.

Throughout, the video treats technology implementation itself as an employment relations choice rather than a neutral operational matter. It considers how poorly managed change can provoke industrial action or undermine engagement, and it sets this alongside the broader context of labour market and product market pressures that the 7HR01 indicative content identifies as shaping organisation strategy and culture. Students preparing their AC 2.2 assessment will find the video directly relevant to analysing how these intersecting technological forces play out in specific organisational contexts.