Earlier this year, the National Association for Biotechnology published a study that looked into the cause of hesitancy among industrial workers when it comes to adopting wearable technology.
Using focus groups, the researchers explored the factors that influenced wearable technology acceptance. They looked at what they considered high-level factors related to management, work design, and job requirements.
The study concluded that while individual-level factors such as usability and comfort do contribute to acceptance of wearable technology in industry, organization-level factors had a larger impact.
The survey participants provided several actionable insights to reduce hesitancy.
- Emphasizing safety culture and the benefits of workplace safety and health is paramount.
- The case for using wearables for performance improvement should also be discussed after leading with safety.
- Organizations should consider voluntary participation in a wearables program with early adopters.
Looking specifically at the construction industry, another study published in Science Direct notes that physiological monitoring, wearable sensing devices, and location tracking wearable sensing devices have been studied and found to increase construction site safety.
The study notes that: “The validity of the technology to create wearable devices for construction safety has been studied ... and it has been found that wearable safety devices could have prevented 34% of the deaths recorded in 2018 in the OSHA archives.”
However, the devices are not utilized by construction contractors on a wide scale. The research found that 46% of construction laborers are not willing to use biometric wearable sensing devices. And 59% of construction laborers are not willing to use tracking wearable sensing devices.
The biggest concern about wearing this technology was privacy. Workers fear that the device might capture data they consider personal and private.
There was also the issue of workers not liking being consistently monitored while they work.
Additionally, workers were uncertain about whether the collection of private health data would be used for health insurance or employment decisions.
The research, which goes into great detail, concludes that more study is needed in this area.
