Employee assessment of their technological redundancy

ABSTRACT

Many futurists and business people suggest that we are in the midst of the fourth industrial revolution because of rapid advancements in smart technology, artificial intelligence, automation, robotics, and algorithms (STAARA). However, very little research has been conducted on how employees view their jobs and careers in the age of these potential changes. Structural equation modelling was used on a sample of 196 employees to test a number of job-related predictors regarding employees’ perceptions of their job insecurity from STAARA: job control, job complexity, job repetition, and STAARA awareness. These employee-rated predictors were then used to predict STAARA redundancy. Overall, all constructs played important roles in understanding the prediction of STAARA redundancy. Unusually, STAARA awareness was found to be negatively related to STAARA redundancy, indicating that employees may not be the best judge of technology’s potential to replace their jobs. The implications are important when we consider how employees assess their jobs and long-term career prospects in relation to STAARA.

KEYWORDS:

• Future of work
• technology changes
• robotics
• artificial intelligence
• automation
• career planning
• employee awareness
• technological redundancy

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Corrigendum

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

David Brougham

David Brougham is a senior lecturer in the Massey Business School, specialising in the future of work. His research looks at how smart technology, artificial intelligence, automation, robotics and algorithms are changing the workplace. At present, he is looking at how employees plan to adapt to these changes as a result of technological disruption. At present, he has over 10 refereed journal articles and over 30 refereed conference papers/abstracts. David has 30 media appearances regarding the future of work. David is a member of MPOWER, The Healthy Work Group and is the associate editor for the New Zealand Journal of Human Resources Management.

Jarrod Haar

Jarrod Haar (PhD) is a Professor of Human Resource Management in the Department of Management and has tribal affiliations of Ngati Maniapoto and Ngati Mahuta. Jarrod is a Research Fellow of the Australia & New Zealand Academy of Management, an Associate Fellow of the Human Resource Institute of New Zealand (HRINZ) and won  the inaugural HRINZ HR Researcher of the Year Award in 2016. He is the Deputy Director of the NZ Work Research Institute. His research falls into four main clusters: (1) how employees manage their work, family and life roles such as work-life balance; (2) the role of cultural factors in the workplace, particular for Maori employees; (3) teams; and (4) leadership and its influence on followers. Professor Haar has over 300 refereed academic outputs (including 71 journal articles). He is an award winning and lecturer, and is a named researcher on the NZ National Science Challenge: Science for Technological Innovation.