Europe’s business leaders, policymakers and researchers to share insights on future work
EUWIN and Beyond 4.0 invite business representatives, policymakers, social partners, and researchers to participate in the free Virtual Conference Workplace Innovation in the Digital Age. Now more than ever, it is vital to share emerging trends and debate effective strategies for digital and workplace transformation. The Conference comprises three two-hour events spread over three days, each including short presentations and a facilitated discussion.
Why attend?
‘Industry 4.0’ promises to transform productivity, remove waste, eliminate repetitive work and enhance capacity for innovation. How do you ask? Through the rational organisation of production and service delivery. Yet research evidence and practical experience alike suggest that improvements in business performance will be achieved mainly through enhancing human labour through digital assistance rather than replacing it. In short, organisations are unlikely to achieve a full return on investment unless technological innovation and workplace innovation are considered together. By empowering employees to use and develop their full range of competencies and creative potential, workplace innovation can achieve high performance. Simultaneously, you’ll have a fully engaged and healthy workforce. Only then, it is possible to create an organisational culture in which digital technologies are embraced and their benefits maximised – through the best possible synergies with human potential.
Start at Best Participation
Start at Best as a guest speaker on the second day of this virtual conference will show how a European project can promote innovative workplace models, unconventional solutions, and an enhanced understanding of worker’s needs – made possible by the wider participation of stakeholders in the innovation process. Our project comes at a critical time, helping to ensure business competitiveness and readiness for the next industrial revolution. However, to transform potential into reality, digital workplaces must be embedded in a culture of close interaction and cooperation, enabling productivity gains to be combined with creativity and innovation. Discover more in our session.
The Virtual Conference
Digital innovation and workforce readiness: emerging trends in the workplace
15.00 – 17.00 CET
There is much discussion of the need to achieve the best possible synergies between digital potential and human potential. But what does this look like in practice? There are few clear guidelines, but this session will discuss the emerging trends, challenges and opportunities faced by three leading business.
Peter Totterdill (Workplace Innovation Europe CLG) will introduce the session by asking what workplace innovation means in the context of the coming digital revolution, outlining some of the key challenges and decisions facing Europe’s businesses.
Digital and workplace innovation: Emerging trends in public policy
15.00 – 17.00 CET
Policies and programmes to stimulate, resource and sustain the spread of workplace innovation are well established in countries such as Finland, France and Germany over many decades. In recent years they have also spread to the Basque Country, Scotland and elsewhere, and there is growing interest from governments as far afield as Canada and South Korea. Workplace innovation initiatives are also emerging in new types of setting through, for example, the EU’s INNOSUP 04 programme and the Dutch Top Sectors strategy.
Introducing the session, Tuomo Alasoini (Finnish Institute of Occupational Health) will review past and current trends in the development of national and regional policies for workplace innovation in Europe, and outline the challenges facing policymakers with the rise of digital technologies.
Digital and workplace innovation: emerging trends in research
15.00 – 17.00 CET
The future of work in the digital age sets many interesting challenges for Europe’s research community. Chris Warhurst (IER, University of Warwick) will introduce the session with an overview of these challenges and some emerging findings from recent research.















