Digital transformation: The strain of being an “immigrant” in the digital workplace

This paper examines how digital transformation affects the working life of individuals over 50 years old in Greece. It aims to capture how employees experience the changes brought about from the implementation of technological tools and digital processes in their work, and how these changes affect daily life and relationships inside and outside the workplace. Data was collected via eight focus groups with a total of 37 employees and professionals over 50 years of age, from the private and public sector. Among the most interesting findings was that participants seem to perceive digital transformation as an "inevitable evil" that forces them to reject familiar methods that offered them a sense of safety and competence. The findings underline that the acquisition of digital skills tends to be a matter of individual responsibility, self-training and personal investment of time and money in Greece, without adequate support from the workplace/organization. The slow pace of digitization and digitalization processes, fragmentary implementation of digital services, lack of uniform systems and unsatisfactory ergonomics of digital platforms are causing confusion and create a new kind of 'digital' bureaucracy. Within this context, technophobia and technostress develop out of feelings of insecurity and anxiety due to lack of confidence in digital processes, feelings of fear about the irreversibility of digital mistakes, and frustration from having to implement new processes without human/colleague guidance. Good practices have also emerged from the data which are discussed in the final section of the paper.