Introduction of management software in social services

This article is based on a ten-month ethnographic study conducted in five social services in French-speaking Switzerland, exploring the reconfigurations of social workers’ work through the introduction of management software in 2021. It analyses the consequences of digitization of work on day-to-day professional practices, including the constraints that the software imposes on social workers and the effects it produces, particularly feelings of being subjected to surveillance and control. The article essentially reveals the arrangements developed by the social workers, which translate into practices to protect both themselves and their profession.