Example opportunities and risks

• Improved workplace efficiency and productivity. This could reduce job demands for workers by automating routine tasks.

• Automation of the most stimulating or fulfilling tasks (e.g. technical or creative tasks) leading to low cognitive demands.
• Automation of routine or basic tasks resulting in workers having a greater proportion of tasks which require extensive thought and focus (work intensification).

• Systems can be used to manage WHS risks (e.g. checking a driver is taking adequate rest breaks) and can improve efficiency.

• Work intensification from workers knowledge of surveillance. 
• Scope creep where legitimate monitoring is used for other purposes – such as performance management.

• Update inefficient, unclear or unsafe systems improving efficiency and safety.

• Workloads increasing to get across new system updates particularly where updates are unnecessary, too frequent, or have little safety or long-term efficiency benefits. System updates which directly create safety issues (e.g. disabling sensors or alarms). 

• Automate complex decision making to decrease job demands and increase the speed of decisions.
• Can help identify trends in data and improve WHS strategies. 

• Workers may have limited authority to over-ride decisions or outputs from digital technologies or may be unclear on the process to do so. This may lead to organisational justice risks or may harm the health and safety of others at the workplace (e.g. patients receive care plans which are created by digital technology). 
• Workers may be organisationally responsible for responses from digital technology which they cannot fully control or where another user can influence outputs (i.e. generative AI chatbots)

• Eliminate or minimise worker exposure to traumatic materials through means such as automated file labelling, content filters, access controls.

Workers exposed to more frequent or severe traumatic information due to the use of digital technologies:

• if there are inadequate content controls in place, or 
• because of a belief that exposure to traumatic materials via digital means is less harmful than seeing traumatic materials in person.

• Automate processes for customers/clients/patients increasing convenience for them and reducing worker exposure to physical and psychosocial risks. 

• Flawed digital systems causing frustration for workers or customers/clients/patients. This can lead to increased job demands and harmful behaviours.

• Detect or block online safety issues, such as bullying, abuse and harassment.

• Anonymous abuse and harassment may be facilitated by digital technologies.
• Users may be able to bypass systems which detect online safety issues or systems may incorrectly block non-harmful material and cause frustration for users.
• Systems settings blocking communication they were not intended to capture (e.g. because they block words which may be problematic in some contexts but not all). This may increase workload and frustration for workers.

• Identify hazards like fatigue and predict the risk of fatigue based on historical data.

• Over-reliance on digital technologies to detect hazards (e.g. workers and PCBUs solely relying on technology to detect fatigue and ignoring workers own biological indicators of fatigue). 

• Provide flexibility for workers to work from remote locations allowing them to work at times that suit them and around non-work commitments. 

• Can create an expectation workers are available outside work hours preventing them fully disconnecting from work and increasing cognitive load and job demands.

• Where work is already remote or isolated, digital technology can increase social interaction and reduce the hazards associated with remote or isolated work.

• Remote working arrangements facilitated by digital technologies may lead to fewer social interactions and contribute to a poorer workplace culture (e.g. where office workers work from home regularly and do not have set common days to work together in person).

• Reduce risks from manual handling tasks (e.g. musculoskeletal disorders or other physical risks) through use of advanced robotics or wearable devices. 

Wearable devices may lead to an increased risk of:

• excessive heat, 
• vibration, 
• ergonomic hazards or 
• electrical hazards.

• Remove or reduce human exposure to dangerous environments from the use of autonomous plant, advanced robotics or automation. 

• Technology misuse or malfunction from autonomous plant, advanced robotics or automation may create risks such as crushing workers or exposing them to hazardous substances (e.g. safeguards such as proximity sensors failing).

• Virtual and augmented reality systems can be used in training procedures to allow safe and immersive training for high risks tasks, without exposing inexperienced workers to high-risk tasks.

• Virtual and augmented reality systems may not adequately represent the tasks workers are trained for.
• These may have negative ergonomic risks for workers who are using them (e.g. blocked visibility, eye health risks, motion sickness, seizures).
• Training can be traumatising and distressing if prior warning of triggering content or debriefing does not occur for some hazards (e.g. training on management of violence).

• Digital technology can improve physical security, through doors which require key cards, improved security cameras/ monitoring and digital protections.

• There may be scope creep where technologies are implemented for legitimate safety reasons but then also used for other reasons – such as surveillance or performance management. 

• AI tools can improve fraud or phishing detection for business.

• Poorly managed cybersecurity may lead to leaked personal information, potentially leading to targeted harmful behaviours or poor organisational justice.
• Digital technologies can be used by malicious actors to create more sophisticated cyber security risks (e.g. more realistic phishing, fraud).
• Digital technologies can be used to automate cyber security attacks.