Fist reply:
Now Hiring Skilled Robotics Personnel
Mateo
Hello,
Strength
Indeed, being that more than 60 percent of executives are faced with the problem of
retaining or replacing more than one-quarter of their workforce in the next coming years
due to advanced robotics and automation, it is important for those organizations to
enhance a carrier opportunity with collaborative education relationship at college level to
minimize the inconsistencies that can be caused by lack of skilled personnel to handle the
robots. By doing this, it will be easy for firms across a multitude of industries and fields like
chemical and mechanical engineering to retain their workers to operate the robots. In line
with what you have mentioned, companies need to retain their workers on handling and
using robots to remain competitive in the market.
Weakness
Even though you have mentioned how companies can undertake this in detail, you
failed to mention how organizations can handle matters related to safety, considering that
in the event one employee is injured, the operations of the company can come to a
standstill. I believe that safety is an essential aspect that cannot be ignored when operating
robots. This is because, according to industry research, the majority of work-associated
accidents and injuries that take place where a robot is involved occurs when an employee is
carrying out maintenance of a robot or adjusting a robot, or even programming it. This
means that L&D professionals, at minimum, should come up with compliance and safety
guidelines and policies for maintaining and operating robots to prevent employees from
being injured while operating robots (Wisskirchen et.al, 2020). It means that employees
should be trained on the best ways of handling all safety barriers, dangers, and hazards. This
phase is usually ignored by the majority of companies, but it should be incorporated under
the continuous learning process activities in organizations as a way of updating employees
on the best ways to handle robots performing different functions. By upskilling employees
working with robots, companies are guaranteed to yield a 20% to 30% improvement in
employees' retention (Wisskirchen et.al, 2020). Contrary to popular belief that robots are
replacing employees, robots require employees to acquire new skills and a different set of
skills, considering that robots, if well operated in the workplace, can create double the jobs
they destroy.
Reference
Wisskirchen, G., Biacabe, B. T., Bormann, U., Muntz, A., Niehaus, G., Soler, G. J., & von
Brauchitsch, B. (2020). Artificial intelligence and robotics and their impact on the
workplace. IBA Global Employment Institute, 11(5), 49-67.
Second Reply
Price
Hello,
Strength
Indeed, in line with what you have mentioned, organizations should come up with a
reasonable best practice that puts into consideration the welfare of employees before any
implementation robotics and automation. Just like you have mentioned, companies should
determine how best to support employees for collaboration with robots. Instituting a
learning plan and rolling it out to employees prior to the incorporation of robotics can help
in reducing the learning curves and enhance the acceptance of automation in employees'
environments.
Lack of skill repair personnel can be contributed by the fact that in the event that
robots take over an overwhelming number of tasks, employees may feel that they are
serving less of a purpose. In this way, it can be concluded that robots may significantly alter
the social dynamics and employees' confidence at work. This means that the variety and
amount of social interactions in the workplace are minimized, and in the process,
employees will lose part of the corresponding meaningfulness benefits. This is because in
the event that employees begin working together with robots instead of their colleagues,
they might have less consultation with one another, be independent in their area of work
and have a diminished sense of shared purposiveness and agency (Lasso-Rodríguez & Gil-
Herrera, 2019). This means that in the event that an employee is sick or has found an
emergency, it can be hard for a different employee from different areas of specialization to
operate the robot. This means that all employees working in a company with robots should
be trained to handle more than one robot to avoid any destructions that might occur in such
events. With this in mind, it can be very expensive for organizations to train employees to
operate more than one robot as well as up-skilling them to remain updated with the
changes that take place as a result of advancements in technology.
Weakness
Even though you strongly emphasized the need to train employees before
implementing automation, you failed to point out the potential challenges that can make
organizations consider this process impractical. As with any alteration in organizations,
challenges and learning curves are inherent. Employees' adaptation and how they use
robots within their current processes and daily workflow are one such changes
organizations should anticipate (Lasso-Rodríguez & Gil-Herrera, 2019). Simply adding
automation is not enough as employees will be required to identify and decide on the
proper implementation of such automation for the company's specific needs.
Reference
Lasso-Rodríguez, G., & Gil-Herrera, R. (2019). Robotic Process Automation Applied to
Education: A New Kind of Robot Teacher?. In ICERI2019: 12th annual International
Conference of Education, Research and Innovation.
