Digitale Transformation und Well-being in unterschiedlichen Lebensphasen

The recent impetus for digital transformation has triggered changes in many aspects of work, resulting in varied requirements not only regrading workers’ skills and performance, but also affects workers’ well-being. In return, positive workers’ well-being is the key for the success of companies’ digital transformation. This paper refers to the self-determination theory and shows how digital transformation particularly affects workers’ motivation in terms of basic psychological needs in different stages of their life. For this purpose, focus groups with experts from the craft sector were surveyed. By comparing the needs in this study (autonomy, relatedness, competence and physical health), the importance for digital competence becomes clear and is identified as a key success factor for well-being. Our findings illustrate that DT has both positive and negative effects on psychological basic needs. However, these effects are perceived differently depending on the life phase and work environment of workers. For example, young craft workers welcome the increased demand for more digital competences. In contrast, older workers see increased demands for digital competencies as a threat and induce stress, which eventually have long-term negative effects on physical health. This article provides insights for further research on the impacts of DT and implications for the successful implementation of DT in practice.