When Digital Meets Demographic Change—What Opportunities and Risks Does Digital Transformation Pose in a Shrinking and Aging Workforce?

The simultaneity of digital and demographic change poses major challenges to human resource management and companies. The supply of labor is becoming increasingly scarce, and the demands, preferences, and desires of employees are becoming more heterogeneous. HR managers must find an answer to this as well as to the question of how to enable and motivate aging workforces to adapt to new professional requirements due to digitalization. Skill shortages are proving to be obstacles in many places when it comes to implementing and using digital technologies. However, this also offers the opportunity to take today’s employees along on the path of transformation. Digitalization allows for a focus on value-adding activities and, through the spatial and temporal flexibility of work, a more employee-oriented work organization.