Technology insight
Blessing or curse?
Doug Sawers, managing director at SD Worx, gauges the long-term impact of AI on the world of work
T he growth of automation, artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics remains one of the business world’s hottest topics. We’ve witnessed the emergence of driverless cars, smart homes and smart cities. We’ve seen the Channel 4 drama Humans and drawn parallels between our world and its realistic depiction of a dystopian future. We’ve welcomed Siri and Alexa into our lives and they are now organising our schedules and helping us overcome our everyday challenges. Yet it’s in the world of work that automated technologies will have their biggest impact. In December 2016, the Bank of England governor, Mark Carney, claimed that “up to fifteen million of the current jobs in Britain” could be replaced by robots over the coming years as livelihoods were “mercilessly destroyed” by the technological revolution. It’s a concerning vision. But is this the way the future really looks? It’s certainly true that robotics and automation are useful interventions for work that is standardised, repeatable and scalable. In a payroll context, for example, robotic process automation can operate at the user interface layer of applications and work between existing systems to mimic many tasks that individual payroll administrators have historically been doing. The intention is to reduce total cost of operation while improving service quality and ‘calming the noise’ of payroll errors. Overall, though, these AI-based technologies remain immature in terms of their commercial applications. While robots offer advantages in terms of being scalable, audit-compliant and easy to integrate within network environments, they do also need humans to guide their usage. It can take four to eight weeks to
set up and train a robot, for example. And today, robots do still typically concentrate on the most low-level, repetitive tasks in a workplace environment. ...the technology skills of employees will, of course, become Human beings are still needed to apply the creativity, intuition and strategic thinking needed to unlock the value of the groundwork robots have done. The human resources (HR) department will play a pivotal role here in helping staff ‘skill up’ to deliver on these responsibilities and protect their ongoing role. Strengthening the technology skills of employees will, of course, become increasingly important in the ever-more automated business world of tomorrow. There are, however, a range of other softer skills that humans have that robots will always find difficult to master. By honing these, again with the help of a supportive HR department, employees can make themselves even more indispensable. Early in 2016, the World Economic Forum (WEF) released its Future of Jobs Report (http://bit.ly/1nf6lYI), which revealed some of the top skills that will be in high-demand by 2020. Understanding what skills and capabilities are important to have in the workplace will make it easier for leaders to know which to focus their attention on for talent acquisition and employee training initiatives. In our view at SD Worx, skills that will be especially key in the future include complex problem increasingly important...
solving which, according to the WEF research, is going to continue to be the most desired skill employers have in 2020, with 36 per cent of all jobs spanning across every industry projected to consider this skill a core ability. Critical thinking will also be key, especially in analysing and interpreting the reams of data, information and insights that are being collected and aggregated by machines today. Creativity, a quality that even the most sophisticated AI-driven machines will struggle with in the future, is also likely to be in high demand. Other skills likely to be increasingly prized in the workforce of the future include people management that requires strong motivational and leadership skills, and collaboration which requires good social and interpersonal capabilities. What the above skills have in common is that they require emotional intelligence – the ability to move beyond the purely rational and logical, harness emotions and apply them positively to key tasks and have empathy and understanding of how others are feeling. It’s where robots often continue to fall short. Emotional automated fashion remains a task too far for even the most agile brains working on the development of artificial intelligence today. All the successes achieved by automation will never remove the need for human-led HR departments or for human staff in general. By freeing up humans from repetitive tasks, these technologies will instead change the focus for employees onto more creative, high- value activities. The role of robotics may increase but humans will still be key to the workforce of tomorrow. n intelligence is an inherently human characteristic and replicating it in an
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| Professional in Payroll, Pensions and Reward |
Issue 29 | April 2017
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