HR departments are beginning to turn their attention to the impact robots and Artificial Intelligence (AI) may have on the industry. To understand the impact on HR in the next 5 years is to understand what may happen to jobs
Project Fear
Researchers at Oxford University believe that about 47% of all jobs could be completely overtaken by robots within the next 17 years. Similarly, the Gartner Group published findings that stated that, on a global scale, a third of our jobs will be lost to robots by 2025. Naturally, those who perform routine jobs that require little skill are more at risk than their more nuanced counterparts. There is plenty more research that basically paints the same picture.
In this future, HR departments will have to figure out which jobs can be replaced along with what the repercussions are for this drastic change.
Project Utopia
There is a belief that robots entering the workplace will bring with them extra jobs as well.
A study published by Delloitte states that starting from 2001, thanks to automation, 3.5 million low-risk jobs have been created while 800,000 high-risk jobs have been lost. These newly created jobs are safer and pay £10k more. Additionally, Goldsmith’s FuturaCorp published a study that envisions unique job titles like technology brokers and interactionists. Yet, more important than figuring out what job titles will be, HR needs to imagine what the integration between humans and robots will look like.
Professor Chris Bauer, director of innovation for Goldsmiths’ Institute of Management Studies at the University of London, believes that a hybrid workspace where human beings will work in tandem with advanced robots is an inevitability that will produce outcomes that far exceed the work of humans or robots on their own.
With this view in mind, HR must prepare today’s workforce for tomorrow’s challenges. Today’s employees need to be re-trained and educated to supplement the power that AI brings to the table.
Robots and HR
After investigating what automation means for the workplace, it’s time to investigate how automation will affect HR departments themselves.
In fact, robots can have a clear advantage over human beings when it comes to tasks related to data analysis. Obviously, robots can crunch huge amounts of data much faster than human beings doing the same task, and there is the potential to automate certain processes. However, there will remain parts of the role that a robot cannot replace. A robot can’t hire judge the soft skills and cultural fit of an organisation.