Digital Occupational Health Systems: What Do Employees Think about it?

Abstract

A high rate of work-related accidents or diseases around the world not only threatens the health and wellbeing of employees, but also causes a considerable annual economic burden for organizations. One promising use of information technology would therefore be the management and prevention of occupational accidents and employee absenteeism. Although some companies are starting to introduce digital occupational health initiatives, there is scarce evidence about the inhibiting factors which may discourage the wide adoption of such systems in the workforce. This paper presents qualitative and quantitative data of an exploratory study, which delves into the perceptions of employees towards the use of digital occupational health systems. Our results show that employees are usually aware of the enhanced possibilities for managing and improving their health and wellbeing through such corporate initiatives. However, privacy concerns and the additional mental pressure caused by such systems, significantly diminishes an employee’s willingness to adopt them.