The robotics transformation: the role of HR

The technological transformation is generating an influx of innovative “breakthrough” products and services. This surge is shaking things up, forcing us to ask new questions and is sometimes frightening. This can be seen today with the arrival of “active” robotics – autonomous, often mobile devices that interact with humans and their environment – which is increasingly being deployed in a wide range of sectors, from medicine and logistics to maintenance, surveillance, exploration and others.

The overall systemic, existential questions are important. In France, we tend to take a dystopian viewpoint, highlighting the negative aspects. There are, however, a great number of potential alternative futures. In order to explore them, sociology and ecology must today be placed at the heart of the applications intended for these technologies. Forward-looking debates must be launched, drawing upon the social and human sciences, from which new meaningful visions will emerge.

At the same time, we must prepare to experience a transformation over the next 10 to 20 years. In France, according to a Senate report, nearly 50% of the jobs of the 603,000 employees in the logistics sector are at a high risk of being automated within 5 years. Starting now, Human Resources and continuing education strategies must orient these employees towards the maintenance, management and control of autonomous guided vehicles (AGVs), for example.

However, it is more difficult to lay out a strategy when the deep transformation is further off and the technology is just emerging. Despite this, a number of concrete, pragmatic HR actions can already be undertaken. These include: learning as much as possible about these technologies in order to better understand them; making the distinction between missions that require human value added and those that can be automated (must customer relations be “one-size-fits-all” and production-driven, in which case a chatbot can suffice, or personalized and more social in nature, thus requiring human beings?); and incorporating robotics in a project-based approach, including all of the players involved, without any staff or hierarchical siloing.

Finally, HR and Innovation departments, as well as the people responsible for CSR, will undoubtedly have to work together so that Schumpeter’s famous principle of “creative destruction” proves more creative than destructive. “Successfully achieving creative destruction OUR way” is perhaps the cross-departmental strategic aim that can ensure a company’s successful transformation.