Dr Penny Williams has been awarded an ARC DECRA grant for her project ‘Automated People Management: When algorithms manage employees’.
The $458,798 project aims to explain the impact of technologies that automate people management. Through four integrated studies, this project expects to generate new knowledge on a currently invisible set of managerial and industrial practices that are profoundly reshaping work and employment relations. Expected outcomes include the first typology of automated people management technologies that will be used to reveal where and how automated people management is occurring in Australia and its effects on managers and workers. This much needed research should provide significant practical benefit to organisations and inform emerging policy and frameworks for the responsible adoption of AI and digital technologies in Australian workplaces.
The three-year project is expected to commence in early 2023. We congratulate Penny on this tremendous recognition.
About Penny Williams
Penny is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Management whose research explores the changing nature of work and the intersections of technology and work. Her research interests span work in the gig economy, flexible work arrangements, the impact of technology, including AI on work and workers, precarious employment and digital capability/employability skills for university graduates. Penny has over 15 years experience in corporate HR and strategic consultancy roles, working across public and private sectors, nationally and internationally.
Penny is a member of Australian Human Resources Institute and Fellow and Associate Fellow (Indigenous) of the Higher Education Academy (UK).
Penny is co-leader of CDWI’s Work & Employment research program which examines the lived experiences of paid, unpaid and unwaged work, through 3 inter-related themes: Equality; Mobility; and Technology.