Workshop #3: Designing Meaningful Industrial Work for Hybrid Human-Technology Environments

We are inviting contributions to an interactive workshop that will explore how cognitive ergonomics and human-centered design can enhance the meaningfulness of work in hybrid environments where humans collaborate with automation, artificial intelligence (AI), virtual reality (VR), and other remote technologies. The workshop will be held as part of ECCE 2025 conference (October 7–10 2025, Tallinn, Estonia). The workshop will include position paper talks / sharing session, interactive discussions, short expert talks, collaborative activity, and future directions or joint paper collaboration. The workshop aims to discuss human-centered, cognitively ergonomic, and meaningful industrial work in hybrid environments with a particular focus on enhancing worker motivation, competence, and well-being, while attracting younger generations of workers. We invite position papers of 2-4 pages maximum (one column, following the general ECCE ACM conference format).

The objectives of this workshop are deepening discussion on the meaningfulness of industrial work and contemplate its role within the realm of designing future work. Our aim is to combine theoretical discussions and empirical studies to strengthen our understanding of the complex dynamics of cognitive ergonomics and HCD in creating attractive and meaningful industrial work. The organisers intend to organize a joint publication, series of articles or special issue, on the basis of workshop contributions.

Industry 5.0 aims to renew European industries by focusing on resilience, sustainability, and human-centricity rather than just technology-driven progress [1]. It envisions integrating adaptive and intelligent technologies (e.g., AI, VR, Augmented Reality (AR), metaverse, robots etc.) into human work for seamless cooperation, which requires well-designed cognitive and sociotechnical systems[2]. Future industrial work will leverage intelligent technologies and cyber-physical systems, integrating physical and virtual spaces to enhance operations through hybrid environments and digital twins [3]. Collaboration will occur in human-technology-AI teams, both on-site and remotely, and it can also utilize ‘hybrid intelligence'[4]. Also new forms of hybrid work can emerge as sociotechnical systems develop.

New ways of working, enabled by, for instance, advancements in technology and work flexibility, can lead to job redesigning or job crafting[5]. Organizations can design work top-down, but individuals can also proactively redesign their own tasks to optimize and develop their skills and competences, increasing work meaningfulness and engagement. There arise questions about what is the role of technology, algorithms, machines and/ or IT-systems in hybrid work and job crafting, and how (cognitive) ergonomics and design can contribute?

Industry 5.0 emphasizes enhancing workers’ wellbeing and empowerment, enabling them to realize their potential in creativity, talents, skills, and knowledge[1]. Designing intelligent work systems requires integrating human competence into operations while ensuring smooth human-machine interaction[2]. Human-centred design (HCD) aims on systems’ usability and usefulness for users[6]. Cognitive engineering seeks a better fit between operators and systems to enhance performance especially in cognitively complex tasks[7]. Designing and implementing human-centric, hybrid, collaborative technological systems that meet employees’ mental and physical needs requires holistic design guidelines combining expertise such as human factors, ergonomics, robotics, and system engineering[7][8]. Also, user participation is important in designing high-quality products[9].

The increasing use of intelligent technologies, merging physical and virtual worlds, and a shortage of trained workers highlight the need to focus on industrial workers’ wellbeing and make workplaces more attractive. Creating meaningful jobs that offer purpose, social relationships, skill development, recognition, and autonomy can be supported by new technologies[10][8]. Meaningfulness, satisfaction, and psychological richness (i.e. intellectual stimulation) are complementary dimensions of wellbeing, which construct good working life [11] – and presumably attractive aspects of work.

In this workshop we aim to explore these interdependent topics including (but not limited to) presentations about:

• Cognitive ergonomics and ergonomic interventions in industrial work in hybrid environments
• Operating and designing of human-centred AI in industry
• Work in hybrid human-technology-AI teams in industry
• Attractive workplaces in industry for younger generations
• Meaningfulness in industrial work
• Participatory design and stakeholder engagement for industrial hybrid work environments
• Job crafting in industrial hybrid environments

The participants will be selected on the basis of position papers addressing key issues and challenges related to the interactive workshop themes.

Position papers should be 2-4 pages, one column, following the general ECCE ACM conference format. Please see ACM Word / LaTeX Templates for all information on formatting and templates to create your manuscript for submission. Make sure that you use the latest version of the Primary Article Template to create your submission in single-column format. Papers should be sent, in the first instance, to the following workshop organisers before the deadline to: Mari Myllylä (mari.t.myllyla@jyu.fi) and Anna Viljakainen (anna.viljakainen@aalto.fi).

Position papers will be reviewed by the workshop co-organisers. Main criteria are relevance with respect to the theme of the workshop and scientific quality. When sending the e-mail of approval for participation, the participants are informed about the specific themes and asked which themes (e.g. 3 of the most interesting themes) they would like to participate in the workshop small groups. The workshop organizers will then select the most popular themes to be discussed in the workshop afternoon.

Equipment needed on site for participating in workshop: Own laptop.

Maximum number of participants: 10-12

• Deadline for position papers: 31 July 2025.
• Notification to participants will be sent on 15 August 2025.

9.00 – 9.15 Opening 

9.15 – 10.30 Short presentations of position papers (5 min/each), active listening

10.30 – 10.45 Coffee break

10.45 – 12.00 Interactive discussions / group work based on presentations

12.00 – 13.00 Lunch

13.00 – 13.15 Introduction to group work

13.15 – 14.15 Group work on thematic topics

14.15 – 14.30 Coffee break

14.30 – 15.00 Summary of group work and future steps

1. European Commission, Directorate-General for Research and Innovation, Breque, M., De Nul, L., Petridis, A. (2021) Industry 5.0 – Towards a sustainable, human-centric and resilient European industry. Publications Office of the European Union. https://data.europa.eu/doi/10.2777/308407
2. Kaasinen, E., Anttila, A.-H., Heikkilä, P., Laarni, J., Koskinen, H. and Väätänen, A. (2022). Smooth and Resilient Human–Machine Teamwork as an Industry 5.0 Design Challenge. Sustainability, 14, 2773. https://doi.org/10.3390/su14052773
3. Semeraro, C., Lezoche, M., Panetto, H., & Dassisti, M. (2021). Digital twin paradigm: A systematic literature review. Computers in Industry, 130, 103469.  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compind.2021.103469
4. Dellermann, D., Ebel, P., Söllner, M., & Leimeister, J.M. (2019). Hybrid Intelligence. BISE, 61, 637–643. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12599-019-00595-2 
5. Le Blanc, P. M., Demerouti, E., Bakker, A. B., Fraccaroli, F., & Sverke, M. (2017). How can I shape my job to suit me better? Job crafting for sustainable employees and organizations. An introduction to work and organizational psychology: An international perspective, 3, 48–63.
6. ISO 9241-210, (2019). Ergonomics of human-system interaction. Part 210: Human-centred design for interactive systems.  
7. Gersh, J. R., McKneely, J. A., & Remington, R. W. (2005). Cognitive engineering: Understanding human interaction with complex systems. Johns Hopkins APL technical digest, 26(4), 377–382. Available at: https://secwww.jhuapl.edu/techdigest/Content/techdigest/pdf/V26-N04/26-04-Gersh.pdf
8. Gualtieri, L., Fraboni, F., Brendel, H., Pietrantoni, L., Vidoni, R., & Dallasega, P. (2024). Updating design guidelines for cognitive ergonomics in human-centred collaborative robotics applications: An expert survey. Applied Ergonomics, 117, 104246. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apergo.2024.104246
9. Ehn, P. (1993). Scandinavian design: On participation and skill. CRC Press.
10. Smids, J., Nyholm, S., & Berkers, H. (2020). Robots in the Workplace: A Threat to—or Opportunity for—Meaningful Work? Philos. Technol., 33(3), 503–22. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13347-019-00377-4
11. Zacher, H., & Baumeister, R. F. (2024). Differences among a satisfied, a meaningful, and a psychologically rich working life. The Journal of Positive Psychology, 1–25. https://doi.org/10.1080/17439760.2024.2417102 

• Help Me Help You: The Dilemma of Collaboration Between Expert Employees and Chatbots. In Humane Autonomous Technology: Re-thinking Experience with and in Intelligent Systems (pp. 15-43). Palgrave Macmillan.
• Aromaa, S., Heikkilä, P., Jurvansuu, M., Pehlivan, S., Väärä, T. & Jurmu, M. (2025). Company perspectives of generative artificial intelligence in industrial work, Procedia Computer Science, Volume 253, p. 217-226, ISSN 1877-0509, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.procs.2025.01.085.
• Saari T, Leinonen M, Tapanila K. (2022). Sources of Meaningful Work for Blue-Collar Workers. Social Sciences, 11(1):2. https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci11010002.
• Wahlström, M., Tammentie, B., Salonen, T-T. & Karvonen, A. (2024). AI and the transformation of industrial work: Hybrid intelligence vs double-black box effect. Applied Ergonomics, 118. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apergo.2024.104271.