As we have learned, the nature of the workplace is changing rapidly. The rise in the use of robots and artificial intelligence has decimated the employment prospects for many employees in many industr

The Future of the Workplace and Human Resources Roles – Portfolio 1

HRM 515 – Legal and HR Dimensions of Business Management

Colorado State University-Global Campus

Kristen Waddell

May 17, 2020

The Future of the Workplace and Human Resource Roles

Historically, technology has threatened the jobs of unskilled and semi-skilled workers in the manufacturing industries. Jobs in the past taken by automation experienced increased demand for workers in the industry more than it lost. In modern times, however, when automation and robotics reduce the demand for human labor, there is usually a plummet in the availability of jobs available to workers who have lost their jobs to robots. The world is changing, and the historical trends no longer support the recent occurrences associated with robotics. In the years when the United States manufacturing industries experienced a productivity boom, there was not an increase in employment in those industries; instead, there was stagnation and an eventual decline of hired workers. Automation is indeed reducing the amount of unskilled and semi-skilled labor, but it does not affect different skilled, skilled, and specialized types of labor. The United States must match its decline in the need for unskilled labor by educating them faster than technological advances and how to achieve this is a whole different study (Autor, 2015).

This study seeks to evaluate the advancements in robotics, the past, current, and future trends, and its impact on Human Resource (HR) functions and how HR can handle workers displaced by robotics. The study will use peer-reviewed publications, archival literature no more than five years old, and data from government websites to discuss the trends, their effects, changing employment requirements, criteria for utilizing automation for a position, and its effects on HR functions. This study will follow the outline of background; which gives a brief history of the robotic trends, the problem of the study which is the dilemma between human employment and automation, the purpose which is HR place in the dilemma and will proceed to answer the specified questions required by the assignment.

References

David H. Autor. (2015). Why Are There Still So Many Jobs? The History and Future of Workplace Automation. The Journal of Economic Perspectives, 29(3), 3.