Cyborg bureaucracy: Frontline work in digitalized labor and welfare services

From the desk to the cyborg’s faceless interaction in The Norwegian Labour and Welfare Administration

“…Digitized services, a term which denotes delivery through digital solutions, can also provide new opportunities for co-production (Breit et al, 2019). This is in accordance with Lindgren et al's (2019) definition of public encounters.…”

“…The aims of the channel strategy were to make workforce-oriented follow-up more efficient, to reduce costs, and to concentrate resources on NAV's primary objective: to activate unemployed citizens and impose a demand for the citizen to find work (Ministry of Labour andSocial Affairs, 2015-2016;Breit et al, 2019). The starting point of the channel strategy was to use digital technology in the best interest of both service users and NAV (Ministry of Labour andSocial Affairs, 2015-2016).…”

“…The starting point of the channel strategy was to use digital technology in the best interest of both service users and NAV (Ministry of Labour andSocial Affairs, 2015-2016). Service users were routed away from resourcedemanding face-to-face meetings towards digital channels, which are less resourcedemanding for case management (Breit et al, 2019). This routing is in line with offering analogue services as digital solutions.…”

“…The overall aim of the welfare reforms is to activate people into employment. The implementation of digital services represents an important step towards incorporating citizens into working life, or work inclusion Svensson, 2015;Breit, Egeland & Løberg, 2019). This implementation is part of a larger development in which digital technology has increasingly permeated all aspects of society and social life in the last 20 years (Ministry of Government Administration, Reform and Church Affairs, 2013).…”

“…One important consideration that serves to highlight the need for an empirically grounded understanding of these particular groups of service users of NAV is the current lack of relevant literature. Most studies on the implementation of ICT in a social welfare context have focused on perspectives from the organizational point of view (Bovens & Zouridis, 2002;Gillingham, 2015a;Gillingham, 2015b;Breit, Andreassen & Salomon, 2016), which in general consists of samples composed of leaders and frontline workers (Røhnebaek, 2014;Røhnebaek, 2016;Breit, 2019;Breit, Egeland & Løberg, 2019). Some scholars have focused on service users' experiences of ICT solutions (Hetling, Watson & Horgan, 2014;Breit & Salomon, 2015;Hansen et al, 2018).…”