The use of wearable devices in the workplace - A systematic literature review

Abstract

The aim of this Systematic Literature Review is to provide a heuristic overview on the recent trends of wearable technology and to assess their potential in workplaces. The search procedure resulted a total of 34 studies. In more details, 29 different types of wearable devices were obtained from the studies. Categorization revealed that obtained wearable devices were used for monitoring: 18 types (e.g. for mental stress, progress, etc.), augmenting: 3 types (e.g. for data, images), assisting: 3 types (e.g. to uplift their work), delivering: 2 types (e.g. for vital information contents) and tracking: 8 types (e.g. sedentary behaviour). To sum up, though wearable technology has already gained momentum for personal use to monitor daily activities, our studies shows that it also has potential to increase work efficiency among employees, improve worker’s physical well-being and reduce work related injuries. Further work in terms of privacy, usability, security, policies, cost of devices and its integration to the existing system is required in order to increase the adoption rate of wearable devices in workplaces.