‘Reboot: Hospitality Workplaces Navigating Technological Change’ is the first large-scale qualitative study to uniquely examine the ways in which UK hospitality workplaces navigate technological transformation.
Funded by the British Academy and drawing on 65 interviews with hospitality workers, employers and key industry stakeholders, the study examines the ways in which technology is transforming the nature of hospitality work and workplace relations, and how workers exercise agency in order to anticipate, mitigate and manage workforce implications.
The evidence base generated through this study can be used to shape workplace practices, influence public and policy debates, and provide thought leadership on the workforce implications of digital transformation in both hospitality and the wider service sector economy.
Through a range of outputs, the study gives insight into hospitality workers’ lived experiences, and provides policy and practice recommendations for anticipating and mitigating technology-related challenges, developing a more collaborative approach to addressing issues emerging from technological acceleration, and embedding technology in more responsible, ethical and worker-considerate ways.
Please scroll to download the project report and various toolkits and guidelines for workers, employers and organisations supporting workers, and to listen to audio-narratives bringing worker voices to life.
Towards Technological Change with Workers in Mind:
Insights from a study into hospitality workplaces navigating digital transformation.
Bringing Workers’ Voices to Life
Hear the voices behind the technology. Hospitality workers share what it’s like to clock in, serve, and connect in a world of automation and digital change. From hotel receptions to late-night bars, these audio-stories — drawn from 65 interviews — bring you inside the everyday realities shaping the future of hospitality work.
Resources
Technological change with workers in mind:
A toolkit for employers
Technological change with workers in mind: Checklist for hospitality workers experiencing technological change in their workplaces
Technological change with workers in mind:
A toolkit for workers, trade unions and organisations supporting hospitality workers
Hospitality workers’ experiences of technological change –
Key findings
10 questions to consider when implementing technological transformation
When implementing a new technology:
How to better support workers with technological change
Technological change with workers in mind:
Policy Briefing
Project News & Updates
- Final project report released
- Contribution to a conference on ‘Generation Z and the Future of Work in the Hospitality and Tourism Industry’ at the Bournemouth University
- Technological change with workers in mind: A toolkit for hospitality employers
- Creating illustrations inspired by the eight audio-narratives
- Bringing worker voices to life: Recording audio narratives
- Translating research: Creating audio narratives foregrounding the voices of hospitality workers experiencing technological change
- Contribution to the ‘Future-proofing skills, spaces and service through AI innovation’ White Paper
- The undoing of service work: (Dis)connective labour, digital transformation of the hospitality workplace, and the search for meaning – invited research seminar at Cardiff Business School
- Roundtable ‘Hospitality 5.0: Future-Proofing Skills, Spaces and Service through AI Innovation’
- ‘Evolving worker agency in the increasingly automated and digitalised hospitality workplace’ – Conference presentation at the WES2025 Conference in Manchester
- ‘(Dis)connective labour: The reshaping of work in the digitalised and automated hospitality workplace’ – Conference presentation at the WORK2025 Conference in Turku, Finland
- Conference presentation on ‘Digitalisation, automation and the (re)shaping of hospitality work’ at the Disrupting Technology Conference 2025, University of Leeds
- ‘Time to reboot? Where is the worker voice in empirical research on the use of technology in hospitality workplaces?’
- Global Hospitality Research Alliance Special Event on ‘Advocating for Fair Work in Hospitality Employment’ at the CHME 2025 Conference
- Hospitality workplaces navigating technological change – Invited presentation at Northumbria University
- Reboot – Call for Interview Participants
Project Team
Dr Agnieszka Rydzik
Dr Agnieszka Rydzik is Associate Professor in Tourism and Work at the University of Lincoln. Her research focuses on: i) employment relations and the future of work; ii) the gendered, racialised and precarious nature of work; iii) tourism and hospitality employment; and iv) hospitality, migration and welcome.
Agnieszka’s research is worker-centred and focused on making workplaces more inclusive. She has researched the employment experiences of migrant women in hospitality; experiences of women brewers; the implications of technology-driven transformations on lower-skilled tourism workers; socialisation of young workers through flexible hospitality work, and working students’ experiences of insecure employment. She has published in highly ranked journals, including Work, Employment and Society; Human Resource Management Journal; Annals of Tourism Research; and Journal of Sustainable Tourism. Her WES article on women brewers and identity work was nominated for the BSA’s SAGE Prize for Innovation and Excellence. She is currently co-editing (with Chanamuto and Chambers) a Special Issue of Hospitality & Society on ‘Migration, hospitality and belonging: Negotiating and enabling belonging in times of increasing inhospitality’.
Agnieszka is the founder of the Hospitality, Now! Students for Hospitality, Hospitality for Students initiative that engages business and education stakeholders, unions and policymakers in working together to bring change in working conditions for working students. In November 2023, together with industry partners, she launched the Good Student Employer Charter, which champions best practice in student employment.
