When we talk about digital transformation, the focus often lands on tools, platforms and pilot projects. But during the TechConnect Stakeholder Conference in Utrecht, the policy workshop “The policy envelope for the world of work” shifted the discussion to a different question: What kind of policy landscape are all these innovations actually landing in?

Led by Brendan Rowan, the session on “The policy envelope for the world of work” brought together researchers and hospital partners to map the rules, incentives and frameworks that quietly shape every technology decision. Participants looked at labour and skills policies, digital strategies, procurement rules and funding mechanisms, the invisible architecture that can either enable or block meaningful change.

Before better policy, you need to understand existing policy

The core premise of the session was straightforward. You cannot design smarter digital policy if you do not first understand the landscape you are working within. Regulations, procurement rules, funding mechanisms and labour frameworks all influence whether a new digital tool gets adopted smoothly or creates extra friction for the very people it was meant to help.

Participants explored how existing policies sometimes pull in opposite directions: encouraging innovation at the headline level while locking organisations into rigid procurement processes or training schemes that bear little resemblance to actual workplace conditions.

From insights to questions worth asking

Using TechConnect’s ideas of human–technology complementarity and the “affordance gap” (the difference between how tech is supposed to work and how it actually works), the group turned research findings into sharp policy questions:

• How can training schemes reflect real workplace constraints, not idealised use cases?
• How could procurement reward technologies that genuinely fit frontline work?
• What evidence does policy need to judge whether digitalisation is helping workers – or adding pressure?

Building a toolkit that works in the real world

Insights from this policy workshop are feeding directly into the TechConnect Stakeholder Toolkit, ensuring its guidance reflects not just what good practice looks like in theory, but what is actually achievable within the policy environments that hospitals, educators and procurement officers navigate every day. If Europe wants human‑centred digital transformation, policy cannot be an afterthought. It is part of the design brief.