Professionalization Vs Digital Managerialism in Care Work Services. Case of the Electronic Care System in Poland

The Electronic Care System (ECS) is a comprehensive system designed for "coordination and monitoring" of care services in a Polish municipality. Its introduction marked the second phase of a long-term strategy to reform the care sector. Previously, care services were organized using a quasi-market model, outsourcing to private companies, decentralizing and fragmenting management, leading to control issues and declining service quality. The reform aimed to regain control by integrating services, professionalizing and enhancing the quality of care work, and digitizing to streamline communication and reduce administrative burdens. The initial step focused on professionalizing care workers through task standards, a code of ethics for caregivers and recipients, qualification requirements, and quality control procedures, resulting in improved work conditions and higher recipient satisfaction. The ECS introduced various tools for care sector managers, including a digital platform for communication, planning, and payments, a mobile app with NFC devices to monitor caregivers' tasks and movements, and a data repository with reporting tools.

The paper presents findings from a three-year research project on the digitalization of the care work sector in Polish municipalities. It examines how digitalization alters power dynamics between care workers and managers, as well as among institutional actors (care work companies, city authorities, and welfare administration). Utilizing the street-level bureaucracy framework (Lipski, 1980; Brodkin, 2020; Zacka, 2017) and the concept of new professionalism (Evetts, 2011), the study particularly focuses on how digitalization reversed the effects of the initial professionalization reform, altered care workers' discretion, and established a new line of professional frontline management in the care work sector.