In an age of digitalization, especially since the pandemic, workers have wanted more flexibility, support, and collaboration. Employers often promise to improve the worker's experience through technologies. Organisations, industries, and technologies, however, often fall short of their promises, especially when they don't put the human first. In this tension, we argue for the SEISMEC shift: industrial practices that combine advances in technology with the empowerment of workers through fair and ethical digital practices. This shift moves past an Industry 4.0 perspective – one that puts technology and intensive data analytics at the forefront, and towards an Industry 5.0 perspective – one that focuses on the relationship between empowering human practices and new technologies. But how can industries ensure human-centric technological applications that can simultaneously empower the workforce and enhance industrial competitiveness? We argue that this can be done when industries operationalize key CAPS empowerment factors. These CAPS empowerment factors are made of eight complementary concepts and require active participation to engage both concepts to empower workers. But what do these concepts look like, and how can you address them in your own workplace?We provide a brief discussion below with targeted questions at three levels (worker, organisation, and industry-wide) to help you assess your own organisation.

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