Professional Deformation of Staff Under the Digital Economy

In the article, the authors focus on the study of personnel in the context of the digital economy. The influence of professional deformation of personnel, which prevents the formation of a demanded employee in the digital economy, was studied using the example of salespeople of retail chains. It is assumed that digitalization leads to the emergence of multitasking, lack of time and constant control, which are additional stress factors that exacerbate professional deformation. To conduct an empirical study the following methods were used: “The level of emotional burnout” by V. V. Boyko, R. Cattell 16 Personality Factors Test, “The level of subjective control” by J. Rotter (LSC test), the method of pictorial associations by S. Rosenzweig. We identified two groups of network sellers with pronounced symptoms of professional deformation in the digital economy: experimental and control. The experimental group revealed the existence of a set of personal deformations: ego-centrism, neuroticism, impatience. The sources of these deformations in the course of the personality adaptation to the peculiarities of professional activity have been determined. One of the main manifestations of the professional deformation of these workers is the internal locus control, the tendency to control everyone around, to be responsible for everything, to assume the role of a “resolver of difficulties” with low indicators of communication competence. A list of measures that allow the development and implementation of preventive response technologies in the organization's management are proposed, the use of which will ensure the controllability of personnel deformation.