Why trust when you can control? : Temporal governing and labour intensification in home care
Author(s): Helena Håkansson
Thursday 15 | 13:00-13:20
Room: TP51
Session: Care and technologies in a digitalised society
While digital time-saving technology has been widely introduced in the homecare sector, its consequences have received limited attention in previous research. Most studies on time and care work have focused on psychosocial implications of lacking time as well as stress and sick-leave (Bergschöld, 2018). Few studies focus on experiences of electronic monitoring (Hayes & Moore, 2017) and there is a significant lack of research with only a handful studies on how time-saving digital technology affects the labour process in the Nordic home care sector (see Bergschöld, 2018; Hjalmarsson, 2009; Strandell, 2023).
The aim is to analyse organizational control mechanisms and temporal governing of home care workers in two municipalities in Sweden. Research questions are; How is time in home care controlled? How is the temporal governing enforced by digital technologies? And how does the temporal governing relate to direct control and responsible autonomy?
The analysis builds on interviews and observations within public home-based elder care in two municipalities in Sweden. In total, 43 interviews have been conducted, of which 12 interviews relating to control and time management in home care was strategically selected for analysis.
The findings show how time management regarding the daily schedule and staffing schedule led to an intensification of labour and temporal precarisation intervening with life outside work, even for permanent full-time employees. Short-time solutions to solve the daily tasks led to an institutionalised intensification of labour, enabled by digital technology. The restructuring of working time, where time is atomized and broken down in small time units to squeeze the time allowed for each task, shares similarities with the algorithmic management in the platform economy (Piasna, 2023). Indicating that work is being reconstructed not only in newer forms of organizations as platform work, but also in traditional employment settings.
The study contributes to the growing field of welfare digitalisation through a focus on temporal governing, electronic monitoring and digital control of care workers. It furthers contributes to the field of work related precarity through connecting temporal governing and temporal precarity outside of work.