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Too much focus on digital technologies could advance workplace productivity "at the cost of human meaning", according to a research team now urging "a more proactive HR response".

The call follows a systematic research review led by Yukun Liu, from ShanghaiTech University's School of Entrepreneurship and Management, that sought to develop a framework explaining how digital technologies influence the meaning of work.

In their paper, published in Human Resource Management Journal, the researchers note that meaning can outweigh extrinsic motivators such as salary, bonuses, and career advancement, because employees don't just want to survive, they want to "affirm that their labour matters". Therefore, understanding employees' feelings and actions is "essential for creating HRM practices that resonate".

But as technologies continue to transform the nature of work, they not only "enable and constrain different meaning-making pathways", they "elicit diverse coping responses", the researchers say...