The PrePaRa project: challenges and opportunities for health, safety and participation
Digital development is revolutionising the way work is organised, creating new risks but also opportunities to improve working conditions. Through in-depth research, the PrePaRa project explores how digitalisation can affect workplace safety and worker participation, and proposes innovative solutions to meet the challenges of the gig economy and the transition to Industry 4.0.
Digital technologies are transforming production processes, bringing new challenges and opportunities to the world of work. This impact affects workers' health and safety, the organisation of work, and forms of participation and representation. However, their impact is not deterministic: they can increase work intensity, increase surveillance, centralise control and fragment activities. At the same time, they can promote flexibility, skills development and greater worker participation, as well as safer working conditions at the workplace, including through tools that can improve prevention. The balance between risks and benefits depends on the design process, and a socio-technical and participatory approach is essential to ensure that innovation enhances human work rather than reducing it to a mere substitution for automation.
On the 11th of March 2025, the volume illustrating the results of the PrePaRa project was presented at the Department of Management Engineering. The project, funded by INAIL, analysed the changes linked to digitalisation and technological innovation. The partnership, led by the Politecnico di Milano and including organisations such as the University of Rome La Sapienza, the Fondazione Di Vittorio, IAL Innovazione Apprendimento e Lavoro, CGIL, CISL, UIL and INAIL's DiMEILA department, aimed to study prevention, participation and representation in the context of digital transformation. This topic is particularly relevant in a panorama characterised by the gig economy, digital platforms and the transition to industries 4.0 and 5.0. The project focused on two main aspects: the analysis of working conditions and work organisation, with particular attention to new emerging risks, and the study of systems of representation and participation, with a focus on the role of worker safety representatives (RLS) and the effectiveness of collective bargaining. Research has examined the impact of technologies on the organisation of companies, individual conditions and the way prevention is managed in digitalised contexts.
The research followed a qualitative approach based on a literature review, interviews with academic and institutional experts, eight case studies in sectors as diverse as logistics, digital platforms, coworking, the food industry, telecommunications and publishing, and thematic workshops with experts, managers and workers' representatives. The focus was on the most innovative contexts, such as the platform economy, which requires new models of participation, and the acceleration of digitisation that occurred during the Covid-19 pandemic. These tools made it possible to explore different situations, identify good practices and propose solutions to improve health and safety in the digital workplace.
The research highlights the importance of targeted training for worker safety representatives, which must include topics on emerging risks and digitalisation. It also suggests the introduction of new models of representation, such as joint bodies and management systems for supply chains and groups, to ensure better protection of workers in increasingly complex and digitalised contexts. Another crucial aspect is the active role of institutions and social partners, who must lead the digital transformation with the aim of improving workers' health, safety and well-being. The adoption of these tools will make it possible to reduce risks while exploiting the opportunities offered by digitalisation to improve the quality of working life in a changing context.
For further reading: Sistemi di prevenzione, partecipazione e rappresentanza dei lavoratori nel tempo della trasformazione digitale, published by Franco Angeli