The People Vs The March Of Technology – The Case Against Hiring People (Contrasting employee productivity with technology’s)

An employee is productive a mere 12.5 hours a week. So learn why a “people first” policy is costly.

A think piece – designed to get you to objectively consider the cost of hiring people.

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A Complete List Of Costly Problems That Workers Create (that tech solutions do not)

This first section highlights the I-V categories of work-related factors that make assigning employees to do new work much more costly than if you were to use a technology alternative.

I) Checklist highlighting the times when employees are not available to work

One of the advantages of technology alternatives is that they can remain available 24/7, 365 days a year. In contrast, human employees are often unavailable (or unwilling) to do work. And that makes using employees much more expensive. The times when employees aren’t available to work on their assigned KPI tasks include:

• During the many hours when they are glued to their smartphones and TikTok
• When employees choose to loaf during work hours (the average worker wastes over 2 hours per day)
• When they are absent from or late to work
• During weekends, holidays, or late-night shifts
• During the mental health days that they declare for themselves
• During the many low-value meetings they must attend, where they are not contributing to their KPI’s
• During bad weather or when bad weather prevents them from getting to work
• Under high-risk, dangerous, or unsafe work situations
• When they aren’t sufficiently trained or don’t have a required license or union card
• When they are out on leave 
• During labor strikes
• When employees decide to walk off or abandon their jobs
• When individuals find an excuse or simply refuse to do the ordered work 

II) Checklist of when employees expect pay even when they’re not working

Of course, technology solutions don’t require any form of compensation. However, employees are expensive, in part because they expect compensation even when they aren’t actually working. They expect pay:

• On 11 federal holidays 
• During break time 
• During times when a business process is shut down
• During their sick/personal days 
• During their vacations 
• During required training classes
• When they are out on disability leave
• They expect a pay supplement during overtime hours 
• They expect standby pay and call-in pay for a guaranteed number of hours 

In addition to direct compensation, employees also expect

• An array of extremely expensive benefits. Like health care and 401(k) contributions. Employers must also pay unemployment and workers’ comp insurance premiums for workers 
• Employees with company pensions expect pension payments until they die

III) Checklist of the bad human behaviors that cause workplace disruption

Of course, technology solutions don’t instigate these kinds of bad human behaviors. However, there are numerous costly cases where employee behaviors are disruptive and toxic. The numerous disruptive employee behaviors include when they:

• Fail to complete their work assignments on time
• Harass other employees or customers
• Threaten, bully, fight, or argue with others
• Lie, cheat, mislead, and steal
• Treat customers poorly 
• Reveal company secrets and plans
• Use profanity
• Are drunk or high on the job 
• Spread misleading gossip or rumors
• Cause expensive accidents
• Cause work errors or a reduction in work quality
• Fail to keep their work skills and capabilities up to date (Like technology does)
• File frivolous complaints, grievances, and lawsuits
• Become overly political on internal issues
• Sabotage and resist change that impacts their job

IV) Checklist of the space and support requirements for employees (that tech solutions don’t have)

Generally, technology doesn’t require the many costly support factors essential to employees, including adequate workspace and necessary support equipment and tools. And of course, buildings that house workers require many expensive design features that technology alternatives simply don’t need. The expensive support elements that most workers will need include:

• A well-designed safe workspace
• A smartphone, a computer, uniforms, and other work support tools
• Conference rooms for team meetings 
• Building security and surveillance cameras 
• Restrooms, break rooms, locker rooms, and employee parking
• Healthcare personnel for on-site emergencies
• Walkways so employees can access other areas and exit in an emergency

V) Checklist of the expensive HR support that is required to manage employees (that tech solutions don’t require)

Most technology solutions don’t require any level of HR support. However, in today’s complex world, your employees will need to be adequately served by most of these costly HR programs:

• A supervisor and/or a manager will be required for every employee
• Effective processes for hiring, onboarding, and internal movement
• Effective HR processes for performance appraisal, performance management, and discipline/employee termination processes
• A legal and regulatory compliance process
• An effective employee complaint or grievance process 
• A handbook of written HR policies for guiding the management of employees
• A fair and transparent compensation process
• A time tracking process will be required for hourly employees 
• An effective work and vacation scheduling process will be needed for each team
• When a union is involved, HR will need to provide Labor Relations support

Note: You can learn more details on how to make better people vs technology decisions here.

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An illustration of the cost advantages of a technology solution – When a single automated Chatbot completely replaces a large call center. You will save huge amounts of money, space, and management time. Because you cut the staff to zero. This eliminated employee turnover, stopped expensive staff training, and ended the need for expensive multi-lingual operators. You might find after implementation that your chatbot received higher user volume and ratings than your call center ever did.

Section 2

The Advantages Of Using Human Workers And Of Adopting Tech Work Options

This last section covers the three distinct categories of factors that must be considered when you are facing a human versus technology decision. 

VI) Checklist of the unique human advantages that must be considered when choosing between people and tech solutions

In some cases, humans have advantages and capabilities that most technologies can’t yet match (Of course, the capabilities of technology are continually expanding). The unique people capabilities that most technology solutions don’t have include:

• Employees and customers often prefer interacting with other humans (and not technology)
• Employees in general have empathy, intuition, and an ability to be creative/innovative
• Employees can have the desired ethics and the right set of values 
• Some argue that employees have emotional intelligence
• Employees don’t have hallucinations like AI does

VII) Checklist covering the unique advantages of technology that must be considered when choosing between people and tech solutions

Obviously, before you make any decisions about people versus technology, you should be fully aware of any unique advantages that technology alternatives can provide.

• Tech can operate continuously 24/7 and 365 days a year
• The capability of your technology can be quickly updated (unlike people)
• Tech is 100% data-driven, so its approach is more precise, scientific, and objective
• Tech can do repetitive tasks extremely well without getting bored or burnt out
• Tech can do a high volume of work much faster
• Tech has an extremely low error rate, which it automatically tracks itself
• It can easily mass personalize its outputs
• Tech has global capability because it can read, write, and speak in multiple languages
• Tech, and specifically AI, learns extremely fast (much faster than people)
• Robots and technology can work in dangerous situations and in bad weather
• Unlike humans, Tech solutions don’t become jealous of proposed solutions that favor using human workers

VIII) Checklist covering the many significant operational requirements that technology solutions require

Before you make any employee vs technology solution decision, you should realize that some technology solutions have extensive operational requirements that are not necessary when you only use human employees to do work. Those expensive technology support requirements often include: 

• Massive data centers that require lots of land that is zoned appropriately
• Huge amounts of electricity that may have significant environmental impacts
• The availability of a 24/7 maintenance staff to keep the hardware/software technology running
• An upgrade team that can implement and troubleshoot a continuing series of hardware and software upgrades
• Access to enough money to fund your capital investments in technology
• And finally, a sufficient number of vendors that are already creating technology solutions for purchase

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And Finally… Adopt A “Productivity First Policy”

At least to me, it’s time to objectively understand how problematic and expensive human workers really are. Yes, Mr. Spock of Star Trek fame was right to remind people around him of the many “flaws” that most humans have. Fortunately, most of these human flaws can be avoided with the use of technology. And because of these many “flaws”, Mr. Spock would likely assign the average corporate worker a… “C- needs improvement rating.”

So, in my view, it’s time for everyone to begin realizing that with the many recent positive developments in technology, especially AI, it is now increasingly possible for technology to take over the many tasks that could previously only be accomplished by humans.

So it makes sense to find the time to question why so many HR organizations still maintain a “people first” policy. Where the company strives to keep its workers employed. Of course, it’s extremely hard as emotional humans to push aside our natural tendency to give preference to human employees (like ourselves). Instead, you should put your shareholders first. And consider formally adopting “a productivity first policy.” Maintaining a large human workforce is becoming incredibly difficult and expensive. And yes, in some cases, it is no longer the most productive option.

Reality Check – Like it or not, putting “Tech First” for all new work isn’t just a future dream. Because it is already the accepted policy at corporations like Amazon and most airlines . Because technology relentlessly keeps adding exciting new advantages / capabilities each and every year. So don’t be surprised when your next new co-worker is actually a robot!

Thank you for reading and sharing this article

Notes for the reader

This is the latest article from Dr. Sullivan, who was called “the Michael Jordan of Hiring” by Fast Company.

You can subscribe to Dr. Sullivan’s weekly Talent Management articles here or by following him on LinkedIn.