Regulating Algorithmic Management: A Multi-Stakeholder Study of Challenges in Aligning Software and the Law for Workplace Scheduling

2025-05-05

AI Summary

This study addresses the challenge of aligning algorithmic management (AM) scheduling software with labor regulations to safeguard worker rights and prevent technologically mediated harm. Drawing on in-depth interviews with 38 stakeholders—including regulators, labor advocates, attorneys, scheduling managers, and frontline workers—we employed thematic coding and cross-role comparative analysis to systematically identify seven core alignment challenges (e.g., tensions between legal ambiguity and algorithmic rigidity). Our contribution is threefold: first, we pioneer a multi-stakeholder integration approach, extending compliance research beyond statutory interpretation to encompass operationalization, technical implementation, and enforcement feedback loops; second, we advance the novel paradigm of “software as regulatory medium”; and third, we formulate four software regulation principles—supporting dynamic compliance, explainable auditing, participatory design, and regulatory adaptability—to guide ethically grounded, legally robust AM systems.

Technology Category

• Philosophy and Ethics of AI: AI & Jobs/Labor
• Planning, Routing, and Scheduling: Scheduling under Uncertainty
• Search and Optimization: Algorithm Configuration

Application Category

• Responsible Web: Human-perceived consequences of algorithmic deployment on the web
• Economics, Online Markets and Human Computation: Fairness and ethical considerations in crowd work and in human-in-the-loop AI systems
• Systems and Infrastructure for Web, Mobile and WoT: Experiences and lessons learnt from Web-based algorithms and system deployments

Abstract

The impacts of algorithmic management (AM) on worker well-being have led to increasing calls to regulate AM practices to prevent further worker harms. Yet existing work in aligning software with the law reduces compliance to just one piece of the entire process of regulating AM -- which involves rule operationalization, software use, and enforcement. We interviewed key stakeholders involved in enforcing or complying with workplace scheduling law -- regulators, advocates, defense attorneys, scheduling managers, and workers ($N = 38$). Based on their beliefs and experiences, we describe how scheduling software affects beliefs about and compliance with workplace scheduling law. In so doing, we discuss the challenges and opportunities in designing software as a tool for regulating AM.

Problem

• Regulating algorithmic management to protect worker well-being
• Aligning software with legal compliance in workplace scheduling
• Addressing challenges in designing software for AM regulation

Innovation

• Multi-stakeholder study on algorithmic management regulation
• Focus on software alignment with workplace scheduling laws
• Challenges in designing compliant scheduling software tools