At-home digital service work in a post-COVID-19 lockdown world: mapping occupational health risks and identifying health and safety strategies

At-home digital service work (hereafter called DS work) is on the rise in post-pandemic work landscapes. By DS work, we refer to home-based process-oriented service work (e.g. customer service, call centre) performed by low-waged employees. Managerial inability to closely monitor workers was previously a barrier to DS work, but digital technologies now provide intense surveillance. We know almost nothing about work and health risks facing DS workers who have indistinct home-work boundaries yet little leeway to control the pace/intensity of work. The ability to voice occupational health problems is unclear in this sector dominated by women, including many racialized immigrants. Of concern is how occupational health and employment standards and workers' compensation are applied to DS employees. This study will address occupational health risks for DS workers by identifying health and safety risks facing at-home DS workers and their experience of access to workplace health protections and generating a framework for occupational health and safety practice, regulation, and measurement. Using Framework Analysis we will: 1) map literature on work at-home health risks; 2) synthesize Canadian laws and policies related to at-home work; 3) identify health and safety risks facing at-home digital service workers; and 4) appraise gendered and racialised aspects of at-home digital service work and frame practices and regulation options that can help to protect the health of at-home digital service workers. Supported by our Stakeholder Advisory Committee, our study will be among the first to examine work and health conditions of DS workers. Findings from this study will support workers, businesses, and policymakers to define the health risks of DS work and guide policy interventions that support healthy, safe and gender-sensitive working condition for DS workers.