Glossary
| Digital skills | Digital skills are defined as a range of abilities to use digital devices, communication applications, and networks to access and manage information. They enable people to create and share digital content, communicate and collaborate, and solve problems for effective and creative self-fulfillment in life, learning, work, and social activities at large[1]. |
| Digital strategy | A digital strategy establishes the overall direction that a business will follow digitally. Key to the strategy is the definition of the digital vision – it provides digital purpose, aligns the organisation and is fundamental to the digital ambition of the business. The digital strategy outlines the channels, assets, platforms and tools required to achieve these objectives and deliver the results. [2] |
| Digital transformation | Digital transformation is characterized by a fusion of advanced technologies and the integration of physical and digital systems, the predominance of innovative business models and new processes, and the creation of smart products and services. [3] |
| Soft skills | Skills that are cross-cutting across jobs and sectors and relate to personal competences (confidence, discipline, self-management) and social competences (teamwork, communication, emotional intelligence) [4] |
| Competence based approach | A contemporary approach that standardizes and integrates human resource management activities based on the competencies that support the organisation’s strategy. Competency based management is a long-term vision for bringing human capital into strategic alignment and achieving empathy, competence, support of talent and behaviors that bring high value to the organisation and support the achievement of its business goals. The introduction of the competency-based approach makes it possible to integrate strategic HR and business plans into a sustainable and comprehensive strategy for human development, to improve internal processes and achieve high efficiency and competitiveness of human resources.[5] |
| Right to disconnect | The right to disconnect refers to a worker’s right to be able to disengage from work and refrain from engaging in work-related electronic communications, such as emails or other messages, during non-work hours. This concept has developed as a result of advancements in communication technologies and its impact on people’s daily lives. The widespread use of smart phones and other digital devices means that always being ‘on call’ has become a reality in many workplaces, as continuous remote access can create pressure for employees to be constantly accessible.[6] |
| ICT-based mobile work | ICT-based mobile work can be defined as the use of information and communications technologies, such as smartphones, tablets, laptops and/or desktop computers, for work that is performed outside the employer’s premises. For most employees, mobile work could be considered a variation of telework, where workers carry out their job from a fixed location outside the employer’s premises. The difference is that ICT-based mobile workers work in a range of locations and specifically use ICT to connect to shared enterprise computer systems. Different levels of telework/ICT mobile work intensity and range of places at which individuals work might potentially have different consequences for working conditions. |
| Mobile working | Work arrangements that allow employees to freely conduct work at any location away from the main employer’s workplace, with full access to the information, people, and systems they need in order to complete their work (e.g., community nurse).[7] |
| Telework | ‘… a form of organising and/or performing work, using information technology, in the context of an employment contract/relationship, where work that could be performed at the employer’s premises is carried out away from those premises on a regular basis’. [8] |
| Platform work | Platform work is an employment form in which organisations or individuals use an online platform to access other organisations or individuals to solve specific problems or to provide specific services in exchange for payment.[9] |
| Lean production | Lean manufacturing (also known as lean production, just-in-time manufacturing and just-in-time production, or JIT) is a production method aimed primarily at reducing times within the production system as well as response times from suppliers and to customers. It is derived from Toyota‘s 1930 operating model “The Toyota Way” (Toyota Production System, TPS). The term “Lean” was coined in 1988 by John Krafcik, and defined in 1996 by James Womack and Daniel Jones to consist of five key principles: “Precisely specify value by specific product, identify the value stream for each product, make value flow without interruptions, let customer pull value from the producer, and pursue perfection.”[10] |
| Just in time production | Just-in-time production minimises the time, labour, and materials in a manufacturing process. It does so by only producing goods as they are needed. The desired outcome is a streamlined production system that maintains a minimal amount of on-site raw materials, minimal wait times in the production process, and small batch sizes.[11] |
| Total Quality Management | Total quality management (TQM) is the continual process of detecting and reducing or eliminating errors in manufacturing, streamlining supply chain management, improving the customer experience, and ensuring that employees are up to speed with training. Total quality management aims to hold all parties involved in the production process accountable for the overall quality of the final product or service. [12] |
| World Class Manufacturing | World class manufacturing is the philosophy of being the best, the fastest, and the lowest cost producer of a product or service. It implies the constant improvement of products, process and service to remain an industry leader and provide the best choice for customers, regardless of where they are in the process.[13] |
| Workplace Innovation | ‘Workplace Innovation’ defines evidence-based organisational practices that enable employees at every level to use and develop their skills, knowledge, experience and creativity to the fullest possible extent, simultaneously enhancing business performance, engagement and well-being.[14] |
| Artificial intelligence (AI) | AI is not a single technology. It is an umbrella term that includes any type of software or hardware component that supports machine learning, computer vision, natural language understanding (NLU) and natural language processing (NLP)[15] 1. The ability of a digital computer or computer-controlled robot to perform tasks commonly associated with intelligent beings. The term is frequently applied to the project of developing systems endowed with the intellectual processes characteristic of humans, such as the ability to reason, discover meaning, generalise, or learn from past experience.[16] 2. The theory and development of computer systems able to perform tasks normally requiring human intelligence, such as visual perception, speech recognition, decision-making, and translation between languages.[17] 3. Artificial intelligence (AI), also known as machine intelligence, is a branch of computer science that focuses on building and managing technology that can learn to autonomously make decisions and carry out actions on behalf of a human being. |
[1] https://en.unesco.org/news/digital-skills-critical-jobs-and-social-inclusion
[2] https://www.incremental.com.au/blog/what-is-a-digital-strategy/
[3] European Commission 2019
[4]https://skillspanorama.cedefop.europa.eu/en/content/soft-skills
[5] https://mycompetence.bg/bg/taxonomy/dictionary/32
[6] https://www.eurofound.europa.eu/observatories/eurwork/industrial-relations-dictionary/right-to-disconnect
[7] https://www.igi-global.com/dictionary/assessing-impact-mobile-technologies-work/18989
[8] https://resourcecentre.etuc.org/sites/default/files/2020-09/Telework%202002_Framework%20Agreement%20-%20EN.pdf
[9] https://www.eurofound.europa.eu/observatories/eurwork/industrial-relations-dictionary/platform-work
[10] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lean_manufacturing
[11] https://www.accountingtools.com/articles/just-in-time-production.html
[12] https://www.investopedia.com/terms/t/total-quality-management-tqm.asp
[13] https://www.clarityvisualmanagement.com/definition/world-class-manufacturing-wcm/
[14] https://workplaceinnovation.eu/what-is-workplace-innovation/
[15] https://www.techopedia.com/definition/190/artificial-intelligence-ai
[16] https://www.britannica.com/technology/artificial-intelligence
[17] https://www.lexico.com/definition/artificial_intelligence
