Robots could make work less important for human co-workers

Much has been written (and can proceed to be written) concerning the impact of automation on the labor market. In the short term, many employers have complained about their inability to fill positions and retain employees, further accelerating robot adoption. It is unclear what long-term impact the sort of radical change can have on the labor market in the long run.

However, an often neglected aspect of this conversation is how human staff discuss their robotic colleagues. There is way to be said for systems that enhance or eliminate the more strenuous elements of physical work. But can technology even have a negative impact on worker morale? Both things can actually be true at the identical time.

The Brookings Institute released this week results findings from several surveys conducted over the past decade and a half to evaluate the impact of robotics on the “meaning” of work. Team of advisors thus defines this admittedly abstract concept: :

“When examining what makes work meaningful, we draw on self-determination theory. According to this theory, meeting three innate psychological needs – competence, autonomy and relatedness – is vital to motivating employees and enabling them to feel purpose through their work.

The data was collected from worker surveys conducted in 14 industries in 20 European countries and in comparison with data on robot adoption published by the International Federation of Robotics. Industries covered by the study included automotive, chemical products, food and beverage, and metal manufacturing.

The institute reports a negative impact on employees’ perceived level of meaningfulness and autonomy.

“If the number of robots in the food industry matched that in the automotive industry,” notes Brookings, “we estimate that meaningful work would decline by 6.8% and autonomy by 7.5%. The autonomy aspect speaks to ongoing concerns about whether the implementation of robotics in industrial settings may also make the roles performed by human counterparts more robotic. Of course, the counterpoint has often been made that these systems effectively remove a lot of probably the most repetitive elements of those roles.

The institute further suggests that some of these impacts are felt across roles and demographics. “We found that the negative consequences of robotization for the meaningfulness of work are the same, regardless of the employees’ education level, skill level or the tasks they perform,” we read within the article.

When it involves how you can take care of this alteration, the reply probably won’t be to easily reject automation. As long as robots proceed to have a positive impact on corporate bottom lines, their adoption will proceed to grow rapidly.

Brookings resident Milena Nikolova offers a seemingly easy solution when she writes, “If companies have mechanisms in place to ensure that people and machines work together rather than compete to perform tasks, machines can help improve employee well-being.”

This is one in every of the important thing drivers behind automation firms touting collaborative robotics as an alternative of direct substitute of staff. A contest between humans and their robotic counterparts will almost actually lead to a loss.