Employee Motivation in the Age Where Technology Is Eating Jobs

MRH Technologies:

Employee Motivation in the Age Where Technology Is Eating Jobs

By: ABHISHEK SHARMA, NMP-28, Section A, Roll No: 03

Word Count: 1318

Dev Anand, the CEO of MRH Technologies (MRH) has been a seasoned businessman who has grown his company from 50 employees 10 years back to 5,000 employees. The growth of the company has been due to the opportunities captured by the company in the IT sector and the hard work of its employees and its management. MRH operates in the technology heavy environment where having the best technology is the sign of competitive advantage.

The company is considering adoption of a new technology called Robotic Process Automation (RPA) which would automate many of its mundane activities which currently is being done by around 500 of its employees. This would result in layoff of these employees as the RPA technology would be able to do the same job in less time and at fraction of the cost.

Now the company has to decide how to take advantage of this opportunity and also preventing other employees in the organization from getting de-motivated since the adoption of RPA would lead to layoff of their colleagues.

COMPANY BACKGROUND

MRH Technologies Limited (MRH) is an information technology, business process services (BPS) and consulting service provider. The Company is engaged in information technology consulting, software development and business process management. The Company operates through five segments, which include Travel, Transportation, Hospitality and Logistics; Banking and Financial Services; Insurance and Healthcare; Manufacturing and Services, and others. The Company provides multiple service offerings to its clients across various industries consisting of travel, transportation, hospitality, logistics, banking, financial services, insurance, healthcare, manufacturing and services. MRH's various service offerings include application development and management, enterprise package solutions, infrastructure management, business intelligence and analytics, business process, quality assurance and independent testing. The company employs 5000 people.

AUTOMATION IS THE WAY FORWARD

Almost all the IT companies in the global economy have been witnessing the implementation of Robotics or Automation on large scale which has been resulting in employee layoffs as the new technology can do the job of multiple employees at fraction of the cost. This is leading to companies improving their financial statements. The companies which do not adapt to the changing technologies are bound to lose ground to their competitors.

However, this phenomenon of replacing men with machines is impacting the employees adversely as they continuously anticipate their jobs being taken away. This also impacts their motivation levels. It therefore becomes important to analyze the benefits and negatives associated with automation, so that the positives can be developed further and the negative effects on employee motivation levels can be addressed.