“What will you do if we replace you with a robot?” This is the question that was asked to me a few years ago by one of my esteemed colleagues. The question requires reflection and appears imbued with a certain lucidity in the era of digital transformation.
According to the employment outlook published by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in 2019, 14% of current jobs could be lost as a result of automation over the next 15 years, and an additional 32% could be profoundly transformed due to the automation of tasks.
Although these prospects were once considered alarmist, it is clear that the meteoric rise in the labor shortage, along with the challenges raised during the health emergency, make these predictions increasingly plausible.
And for the workers who will keep their jobs, things will not be easy. They will have to adapt to the fourth industrial revolution, marked by an economy more than ever guided by data, automation and the convergence of technologies.
Technostress
Whether you are a manual worker or a knowledge worker, current and future technological changes are likely to generate technostress.
For manual workers, there is a decrease in demand for technical skills and an increased demand for process-oriented tasks. These new demands therefore require workers to have a significant capacity for adjustment in a context of frequent changes.
For workers, it is no longer a question of mastering certain tools, but of being able to read a dashboard, follow data taken by sensors in real time, maneuver a collaborative robot, put on an exoskeleton to move heavy loads, etc. .
This obviously presupposes a certain digital literacy, that is to say an ability to use, read, decipher and understand the information provided by these technological tools. Unfortunately, six in ten adults do not have basic information and communications technology skills.
The challenges of the Fourth Industrial Revolution are not unique to manual or low-skilled workers. Even if knowledge workers in general already have a higher basic knowledge related to the use of technologies, this does not mean that they are spared. We only have to think of professional robots, the massive use of collaborative platforms, wearable technologies, etc.
Three characteristics of technologies allow us to understand the stress generated by technologies among these workers.
“Stressful” characteristics
First, the technologies are accessible. Everyone uses them, so everyone expects others to use them. For example, a survey carried out last year in Quebec found that 81% of Quebec adults have a smartphone; a few hours to respond to a text message and we are worried about you!
Second, technologies are intrusive. They make us much more accessible at all times and in all places. The best example to illustrate this observation is the massive use of collaborative platforms such as Zoom or Teams.
With one click, it’s possible to know if you’re online, when you last was online, or if you read your colleague’s message, without instantly replying because you were in a meeting.
We can text or call you through these platforms, without even providing a phone number. There are certainly many advantages to the flexibility offered by these platforms, but the feeling of digital invasion is nevertheless very present and certainly legitimate.
Finally, technologies are dynamic. Everything is changing… rapidly! We are constantly exposed to a new software interface or to new technological tools. Printer, computer, copier, smartphone, etc., the list goes on, but in a high workload environment, the pressure is often great to quickly acquire the skills of using these tools.
When will you have the right to disconnect?
Digital transformation, robotization, process reengineering, hybrid teleworking: these words resonate everywhere today, in a majority of organizations where flexibility has become the watchword. Technology in the background accelerates these changes, supports them, makes them possible. But what do these words mean to workers?
In the light of the examples presented above, we realize how much humans need to be resilient and adapt quickly. This therefore leads us to the culmination of reflection on the initial question: What will you do if you are replaced by a robot?
Even though the human resources specialist in me has difficulty envisioning such a future, I think I have found at least part of the answer: for my part, I will FINALLY take a real vacation!
And who knows, maybe we can collectively and legally offer ourselves a real right to disconnect by getting (a little) closer to this leisure society that we no longer expected.
To read tomorrow: Death to economic growth?