Will Technological Advancements Steal Your Job?

Will Technological Advancements Steal Your Job?

Many people worry that apps, artificial intelligence, and machine learning will slowly chip away at their job responsibilities and may even displace them from their role entirely. Although futuristic sounding, with the influx of technology being used to simplify workloads, the concern is valid but not yet a reality.

Technology has been innovated upon to make life easier for professionals but that doesn’t mean that human input isn’t still required. To showcase this, let’s look at three areas of business where machines are entering the equation but not taking over work.

Recruitment

In the past, human resource teams pounded the pavement to find top talent to fill their jobs. This task required hours upon hours of effort. Today, online job boards have replaced many of those hours and made it easier for employers to reach potential candidates. Moreover, these job boards have artificial intelligence built in to help understand specifically what employers need and automatically match the right candidates to the right roles.

While it might seem like this could pose a potential threat to HR teams, the need for human thought and touch still remains. The way the job description is crafted must sell the position and company, while simultaneously helping technology fine tune the results it delivers. That requires the skill of a person—not a robot.

Scheduling

Some programs exist to make life a little bit easier for busy professionals. Take our online employee scheduling app as an example. This app was designed to simplify the scheduling process by making it easier to communicate work schedules. It was never intended to remove the person from the equation, but rather remove some of the tediousness from their workday.

Now, schedulers are able to quickly create and adjust schedules. But this cannot be done automatically. It requires the help of a person to make decisions about whether someone can take time off, whether it’s acceptable for certain people to work side-by-side, and more. The person is still very much part of the equation even though the technology is making their job easier.

Flexible Work Conditions

A few decades ago, the idea of working remotely seemed impossible and unproductive. Employers worried about how they’d reach their team members, whether they’d goof off if they weren’t in the office being managed, and how they’d access everything they needed to get their job done effectively. Today, flexible work conditions aren’t just a viable option—they’re a common demand from the Millennials and Generation Z.

For employers, this new paradigm might seem like it poses a risk but in actuality, it opens new doors. Employers are empowered to look beyond their geographic region to fill many roles in their business because of the technology available. Communication becomes easier. Collaboration is almost effortless. As a whole, the company is able to get the cream of the crop without confining a search to a specific set of zip codes.

The Next Wave of Technology is Here

Whether you want to face the reality or not, the next wave of technology has arrived and with it, so have new modes of managing the people in your organization. Although new, these technological advancements aren’t stealing jobs—they’re making them more efficient.

Author Profile Jon Forknell is the Vice President and General Manager of Atlas Business Solutions, Inc., a software marketing company specializing in employee scheduling software, including ScheduleBase employee scheduling software, and other business software solutions. In the past, Jon has been recognized by the U.S. Small Business Administration as a SBA Young Entrepreneur of the Year. Atlas Business Solutions was named as one of Software Magazine’s Top 500 Software Companies in 2004 through 2007, and 2010, 2013, 2014, 2016 and 2017.