Have bots started taking human jobs away?

This has started happening in some tech companies, as per what HR leader of Amazon India, Raj Raghavan said at Human Resources Conclave at the S P Jain School of Global Management.

In a session brilliantly moderated by Price Augustine of Mahindra & Mahindra, on workforce transformation, Deodatta Kurane of YES BANK spoke of the whether one day performance appraisals will depend on number of social media likes and whether job offers should be delivered as well-packaged as pizzas.

Ashwani Dahiya of Reliance stated, “the US based gig economy concept is here to stay. The whole notion of organisations is modern (just 300 years old). Temporary positions will be more common and organisations will contract independent workers for short term engagements. We will either be taking instructions from computers or giving instructions to them. Hence location will become immaterial and skills will rule.”

The HR leaders seemed to concur that globalisation will throw up a need for different skill sets, one has to break the paradigm of face to face leadership connect. Employees have to be very comfortable with ambiguity. In the new era, diversity is not just about age and gender, but also about time.

Prof Christopher Abraham, the architect of the conclave, and HR thought leader at the SP Jain School of Global Management said, “Managing complexity, innovation, dealing with ambiguity, learning agility, digital savviness are some of the future skills that companies are looking at today. It is important to think about how we create systems that will address these future skills. We can train people on all these through simulations and case studies.”

Talking about the challenges in front of todays’ HR fraternity Rani Desai, Chief People Officer, Deloitte said, “While we create infrastructure, what becomes challenging is managing the mind sets of the two distinct generations and marrying them to one common objective of achieving the organisational goals.”

Looking at the problem from a contrarian view, Mohit James, Director, Human Resources, L’oreal India, said, “How can technology be the only basis of differentiation between organisations. Somewhere the culture, potential, capacity to create and nurture talent would still differentiate.”

Anju Kurien, Talent Director, India, Omnicom Media Group said, “ The use of digital medium is a challenge which we have to bridge and therefore consciously work with the older generation (leadership) and ensure there is a merger between the younger and the older lot.”

Five big takeaways

Bots are becoming personal assistants at tech companies and taking over routine jobs
When we walk into a door, there must be another door to run out of, to exit your mistakes.
Companies need to move towards purpose driven organisations from just profit driven organisations.
HR communication will transform into marketing communication where employees will be the customers and take the center stage.
Looking at the workforce as human beings first-will solve most of the problems.

The panel discussions made a strong case for work places to transform to work malls where life and work will converge.