Getting sick for profit? The impact of cumulative ICT and management changes on long term sickness absence

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This article evaluates the impact of cumulative ICT and management changes on long-term sickness absences. We use a unique dataset matching a company-level survey on computerisation and organisational change with an administrative file allowing us to track health issues amongst the working population. We implement a difference-in-difference approach using two time windows: a three-year period after changes have occurred and another period corresponding to the period of implementation of changes. We identify three treatments according to the sets of tools implemented by firms and reflecting different types and degrees of organisational changes: Information and Communication technology (ICT) changes only, management changes only, and cumulative ICT and management changes.We find the following core result: cumulative changes in ICT and management tools increase occupational risks and detrimentally affect employees’ health, while management changes only reduce long-term sickness absences. However, there are gendered and occupational differences in the timing and strength of these impacts. First, when firms implement cumulative ICT and management changes, health impairments start for women during the change phase, whereas for men, they appear only afterwards. Second, while we observe the protective effects of managerial changes on their own for both genders during the change phase, these effects do not persist afterwards for women. Third, managers and professionals are protected in the change phase against the serious health consequences of cumulative ICT and management changes, and they benefit from the reduction in risks associated with management changes alone.Hence, cumulative ICT and management changes, which are likely to yield the highest returns for firms in the presence of productive complementarities, are also associated with greater health damage. Furthermore, this social cost of organisational change is only partially borne by the firms responsible for it. We show that the most vulnerable employees are more likely to be mobile (voluntarily or involuntarily) after the implementation of changes.These results point to the need for public authorities assessing occupational safety and health policies to better understand the process of organisational change (its complexity, intensity, dynamics) and the social construction of health behaviours and of the uses of technology and management tools.