Hello and welcome to counter app, a series of podcasts about how app-based workers can counter the power of their algorithmic bosses.

My name is Ben Ray, I'm a journalist and researchers specialising in the platform economy.

In this first episode, we will explore what is algorithmic management?

What problems do workers experience when they are algorithmically managed?

How do workers negotiate the algorithm? What tools and techniques do workers use to recover their data and why?

And how do trade unions build their data capacities?

So let's get started. Part 1. What is algorithmic management? Algorithm sound and are often assumed to be highly complex, but at its heart an algorithm is simply a set of rules which are followed to solve a problem.

So let's say the problem is which food delivery courier should be assigned the food delivery.

A simple algorithmic rule would be that the food delivery courier who is closest to the delivery

point should be assigned the delivery.

Geolocation data would identify the closest courier and they would be assigned the delivery.

This is a very simplified example of algorithmic management, but it tells us the fundamentals of how algorithmic management really works.

Automated or semi-automated data processing is used to take in information and give

out instructions to workers. These instructions can change constantly based on new information

which is collected, but the instructions are always based on a set of rules which have been

designed by human managers.

Algorithms do not do anything which bosses do not want them to do.

What algorithmic management achieves for companies is it allows them to gather in much more information

and change their instructions in response to that information

much faster than before the digital age. A time when supervisors and middle managers

would have done all of this work manually. Algorithmic management is in fact a data revolution

for companies. But what about the data capacities of workers?

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