Hemant Dua, 35, an employee
working as a cashier in one of the retail units of a big FMCG company makes a
distress call to his wife. “I fear I might lose my job, they are getting in
some technology to take away my job, I don’t know what to do”. Hemant is referring to the technology
enabled concept of self-checkout. Self-checkout machines
provide a mechanism for customers to pay for purchases from a retailer without
direct input to the process by the retailer's staff. They are an alternative to
the traditional cashier-staffed checkout.
The number of self-checkout machines is estimated to reach 430,000 units by
2014. (Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self_checkout)
Another
phenomenon of emerging technology, the concept of lights out factory is soon
catching up. What is a lights out factory? A fully automated factory which
takes raw materials as inputs and produces output as finished products, with
zero human intervention, therefore needs no lights on!
These examples are only a tip of
the iceberg. We are increasingly witnessing a huge impact of emerging
technologies on the way businesses and organizations function, leading to a
significant impact on Employee Relations.
First of all, let us try and
decode the term ‘employee relations’ to be able to appreciate the major impact
that emerging technologies have or could make to the employee relations in
organizations. Employee relations constitute two broader aspects. One, the
relationship between employers and
employees, and second, the relationship of employees among themselves (Figure 1)
Figure 1
‘Employee Relations’ as a concept
has evolved from the erstwhile practice of ‘Industrial Relations’. While the
Industrial relations majorly focused on handling the trade unions and
collective bargaining related issues, the employee relations take a more
holistic view of the functioning of an organization and the role of the
employees therein. Therefore, considering the changes in the way business is
conducted in modern times and the two aspects highlighted above (Figure 1), the
core objectives of employee relations (Figure 2) accepted today by most of the
organizations worldwide are, 1) creating a work culture that is challenging and
productive, 2) enhancing the confidence, skills and creativity of the workforce
by training, motivating and building teams, , 3) ensuring fairness in all
transactions across all sections of the workforce, 4) engaging the employees by
maintaining effective communication channels and grievance handling, 5) fixing
remuneration, providing basic, recreational and health facilities, 6)
emphasizing the role of employees in success of the organization and managing
expectations 7) monitoring the compliance to process and policies and finally, the most elusive
objective of 8) achieving participation of the workforce in corporate decision
making.
Figure 2
Now, as we to try to
understand the impact of technology on employee relations in the purview of the
above mentioned objectives, we will focus on some of the most important
influences of technology which make the practice of employee relations
increasingly complex and seemingly easy at the same time.
Job
Opportunities/Manpower Requirements,
this is one of the most prominent impact of technology. The concept of Technological Unemployment (TU) has gained
traction very fast, when the tasks are automated, the employees who were
manually handling the tasks earlier, become redundant. This impact is clearly
highlighted when we look at the example of Hemant Dua. This is a definite
reason for concern and known as one of the most feared impact of technology. Some
of researches in United States attribute a loss of 2 million clerical jobs to
technological unemployment. India has lost close to 5 million jobs in the
manufacturing sector from 2005-2010. Mr. Venugopal Dhoot, Chairman Videocon
Industries, quoted, “Increase in automation has lowered demand for labor. Newer
technologies have come and workforce has moved out in large numbers.” But when
we look at the flip side, the concept of TU is often debated as new technology
also creates new and unrelated jobs. Creative people have benefitted with
emerging technologies. A perfect example of this phenomenon is the post
liberalization growth of IT sector in India. While almost the entire country
feared the adverse effects of technological unemployment, the present day
situation has justified the proponents of IT liberalization. As of year 2012, Indian
IT sector contributed 7.5% to our country’s GDP employing 2.8 million people directly
and creating indirect employment for 8.9 million people. Given this situation,
job security, which forms the basis of employee relations, has become a major
worry for employees.
This
challenge necessitates bridging the skill
gap between the requirements of the new jobs and skills of the employees
available. Building employee relations means preparing the employees for the
jobs of the future through training, and this in turn can also be achieved
through technology. The use of technology demands a good acumen and
adaptability. Any technology which is relevant today will become old/obsolete
in a few years and hence the employees need to be multi-skilled and have a
flexible mindset. With 65% of Indian population aged below 35 years, India has
a distinctive advantage in this regard. That is why many international
organizations are starting operations in India. ER challenge is to make the
employees aware and comfortable with new technologies by faster collaboration
and knowledge sharing across the organization using audio/video conferencing
across locations, connecting employees to experts using structured online
training programs which reduce the time lag between demand and availability.
Tools such as GoToMeeting have not
only transformed the way meetings are conducted in organizations but also made
virtual training programs for large groups (up to 100 people) convenient and
feasible.
This
dawn of emerging technologies and need for training has created niche jobs
which command higher pay packages. Today,
we are witnessing jobs which did not exist yesterday. Organizations now need
specialists for everything. Online Marketing Director is one such job with a
projected growth rate of 60% and commands a salary in excess $100,000. It
requires an employee to combine the experience of traditional marketing with
the new technology phenomenon such as web analytics and search engine
optimization. This job is one of the top 10 best paying jobs of future and all
of these 10 jobs listed have a common thread, awareness, know-how and use of
technology.
Greater
awareness and availability of technology has greatly influenced the expectations of the workforce where
every employee looks to understand his/her contribution to the success of the
organization. Gen Y, a term used to
refer to people with birth dates between 1980 and 2000, has witnessed and
participated in the advancement of emerging technologies that we have today. A
research paper published by Elon Journal of Undergraduate research in
communications claimed that Gen Y students who decided to quit social media
showed the withdrawal symptoms of a drug addict who has quit stimulants. In
such a scenario, the only way for organizations to build a brand among Gen Y is
to use extensive technology to engage the employees. Engagement of employees
through social media such as Facebook and Twitter has become a norm. Many
organizations like Infosys and TCS have created their own learning management
systems to engage with employees even before they join. IBM leads the charge
here, with its path breaking idea of Smarter
Workforce. This idea is about equipping people with tools and technology
that they need to get something done and in turn, find people who can use the
tools and technology. The use of analytics to gain insights into the engagement
levels, end to end recruitment solutions, and the proposed use to Watson (IBM’s
cognitive computing system) for career planning are disruptive trends and help
in creating a coveted employment brand and hence stronger employee relations.
Stronger
employee relations are also based on communication.
An aspect which is a critical success
factor (CSF) for employee relations in any organization, and, communication
is also a factor which has seen the greatest impact of technology in the last
decade. E-mail, the most prevalent communication medium has seen a boost. With
brands like IBM, Apple and Microsoft rolling out newer versions of their
e-mails clients Lotus, Mail and Outlook respectively, the integration of
various features such as video calling in the instant messaging applications,
IBM’s ready-made social networking platforms, Google’s hangouts etc. indicate
the focus on technology enabled communication in today’s scenario. In the
mobile communications, the success of instant messaging apps like Watsapp and
Wechat has reinforced the paradigm. Employees have become more forthright in
sharing their grievances, opinions and asking tough questions using these
mediums. Many organizations conduct online town hall sessions to capture the
ideas and grievances of the employees. While this feedback is being captured,
its use in corporate decision making is still limited. Most of the decisions
are still driven top down through executive boards. Information dissemination
has become quick and unrestricted, and it is difficult to control even the
unnecessary or malicious communication. Most of the organizations are
struggling with filtering the information for dissemination. So, the technology
has impacted the communication in three ways, a) the communication can happen
irrespective of the geographical location and time zone, without delays and
almost cost free, b) there are definite listening mechanisms for collecting
feedback and grievances of employees, c) there is a significant threat of
unwanted information spreading at unparalleled pace, all the three points can
act as a make or break factor in the employee relations of any organization.
As
we talk about the make or break factors for employee relations, the impact of
emerging technologies as intrusive forces have made a significant dent in
certain cases. There is a risk of
overemphasis on the use of technology. Fingerprint swipe and retina scan for
entering the office, data records of an employee’s browsing preferences, system
timed tea and lunch breaks, health information, and complex policies and
processes such as system based approvals, raising tickets for menial tasks,
daily update of tasks completed etc. have become a source of concern and
frustration for the employees. Here we observe an adverse effect of technology
of employee relations. At the same time, technologies are also great levelers
that ensure fairness and transparency. An ATM machine for example wouldn't prefer any person based on his/her designation, social stature or net worth,
whereas, a human is susceptible to such fallacies and strong employee relations
are built on pillars of fairness and transparency.
Now
that we have looked at impact of emerging technologies on the core objectives
of employee relations such as job
opportunities/manpower requirements, emerging skill gap, higher pay packages,
changing expectations of the workforce, mediums and speed of communication, and
overemphasis on use of technology. We can be rest assured that technology
will continue to impact the businesses, organizations and employee relations
therein in a significant manner. The challenge is to channelize the positive
impacts for achieving the desired objectives. To become successful at making a
positive impact on employee relations through use/implementation of any
technology in an organization, Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) can be used.
This model assesses the acceptance of technology by taking employee behavior
into consideration. Bank of Baroda successfully used this approach during its
transformation from a legacy culture to implementation of technology enabled
core banking solutions. This example highlights a customer centric approach
towards the employees. As long as the organizations consider the employees as
customers and then analyze the adoption of technology, they will continue to
enjoy stronger employee relations
References:
No comments:
Post a Comment