DB FPX 8410 Assessment 5 The Future of Work DB-FPX 8410 Addressing Problems in Human Resources and Compliance Universal Basic Income, Guaranteed Federal Job, and Reduced Work Week
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Introduction
In February 2020, businesses worldwide had to adapt to a new way of working to keep their companies operational. COVID-19 compelled companies to innovate to maintain workforce productivity. Many businesses successfully transitioned numerous employees to remote work, while others implemented a hybrid schedule. All companies had to identify essential employees who needed to remain on-site. Human resource departments were tasked with making critical decisions to ensure fairness and continued operations.
The world was compelled to look beyond traditional office operations. Transitioning current staff to remote work was a significant task, but an even greater challenge was transitioning hiring and training to a virtual environment. Leveraging new technology and adjusting traditional processes led to a successful transition for most companies (Nagdeman, n.d.). This paper will examine the effects of current trends on the future of work, including issues that will shape the future of the U.S. workplace, the impact of the pandemic, the use of robots and artificial intelligence (AI), and the pros and cons of the future.
Issues Shaping the Future of the U.S. Workplace
Social Issues
Socially, it has become the norm for office-based employees to transition to working from home. While working from home has benefits for both employers and employees, there are social impacts of this transition. Employers are seeing an increase in different kinds of burnout. Among full-time work-from-home employees, 86% are experiencing burnout (McCain, 2022). Some reasons for this burnout include feeling pressured to work more hours than before, lacking employer support, and experiencing higher stress levels. Remote workers often find it difficult to separate work from their personal life, leading to increased working hours as work is always present. Burnout is not the only issue that employees are experiencing. There has been a significant impact on the mental health of remote workers. Employees who transitioned from office-based work to working from home experienced a 67% increase in loneliness (McCain, 2022).
Of those who reported increased loneliness, 12% indicated that their quality of work decreased due to loneliness (McCain, 2022). As the trend of remote working continues, employers could potentially face low morale leading to lower productivity. Additionally, the societal trend of increased mental health issues will likely continue to rise due to the mental effects of remote working. Changes in consumer habits, such as increased online shopping and having groceries delivered, are already evident. Services like DoorDash and Uber Eats have reduced the need for people to put themselves in social situations. This trend will negatively affect face-to-face interactions. The more remote workers we see who also shop online and have food delivered, the fewer face-to-face interactions there will be, creating a digitally-based social environment.
Technological Issues
Advances in technology have made working remotely seamless with tools using real-time audio and video communication. As more companies adopt a more digitalized workforce using technology, automation will likely replace many human jobs (Parikh, 2021). Despite automation, there will still be a need for humans to work with machines, which gives human productivity a different shape than we have seen so far (Parikh, 2021). Machines still require the human element, meaning there will still be jobs, but they will look different.
It is projected that by 2025, 50% of workers will need reskilling as automation will require a shift in roles (Parikh, 2021). With reskilling and shifting employees, there will be a transition from technical jobs to creative roles that require more strategy and innovation (Parikh, 2021). The shift in roles and skills in the workforce due to automation will likely result in many college students changing their career goals and choosing different majors. Technical majors may slowly decrease as careers such as UI/UX design increase due to the need for innovative ideas.
Ethical Issues
As the transition to a more automated workplace continues, there will be increased ethical questions, raising the importance of ethics in the workplace (Weinstein, 2021). Technology advances quicker than most people can comprehend, which means there will need to be an increased awareness in hiring and promoting only honest and accountable employees to prevent security breaches due to hackers knowing more about technology than the management team. Another aspect of ethics to consider is the mentality of remote workers feeling as though they need to constantly be working. Employers will need to get creative in promoting a