Automation of Jobs & Managing Employee Morale

[00:00:02] Welcome to the Littler Artificial Intelligence & Robotics podcast conversations about employers integrating robotics and A.I. systems into their workplaces in the United States and worldwide.

NATALIE [00:01:27] Jeff I want to just start by asking you about the impact of automation on job workforces. Workforces often concerned about their jobs when they start seeing robots appear on the factory floor.  

JEFF [00:01:46] We look at this situation over a 20-year period and what we found was just the opposite of what you would expect. And I would hope that this would give some comfort to workers. What we saw is that whenever robot sales in the United States went up unemployment went down. And when robot sales went down unemployment went up. So, this doesn’t look like a job killer. In fact, if you look at the period from 2010 until today this record period of robot sales in the United States, unemployment has actually fallen from close to 10 percent to near historic lows below 4 percent.

So, I think that what we’re seeing is that the real threat to jobs is when companies can no longer remain competitive that’s when all the jobs are at risk. Companies that are automating are often the most successful companies creating and saving jobs. And we’re seeing this around the world in economies where robot use is high. Often the economy is stronger. And so, I really hope that that provides some comfort to people although if your job is the one that’s impacted, I can certainly see why that’s an issue. But many employers now are retraining workers for better jobs that allow them to use their brain.  

NATALIE [00:03:09] Ok. So, I’m glad we’re starting on a positive note because this really is a hard part designed to address issues around employee morale. So, let me follow up with this. Of the many company members you’ve helped counsel and train over the years, can you share any particular success story around how a company successfully managed keeping employee morale positive through adoption of automation?

JEFF [00:03:38] Yes, this is something that we focus a lot on in our association. Companies that have been most successful I believe are ones that explain to the workers upfront what they’re doing, why they’re automating and how their jobs are going to change.

I think of companies like Marlin Steel in Baltimore. They were faced with this tremendous competitive challenge from China where Chinese companies were able to make the same product that they did and ship it over to the U.S. for less than it cost Marlin Steel to buy the steel to make the product. So, they were faced with the choice they’d have to shut down or ship the jobs to China to manufacture their baskets or try and automate, which is what they did.

They trained their people whose jobs were changed. They provided retraining for them. And as a result, injuries went down in their company, productivity went up, and the company became so successful that not only did they save their business but after a while they were able to start exporting their baskets back to China. To me that’s a great example of a company that’s did it the right way.

The real issue as I said is this need to be globally competitive and if you look at the U.S. compared to China or the E.U. or Japan, or even Korea they’re making much greater investments in automation.

So as a result, with this government support that these companies are getting, they’re becoming extremely competitive on the global stage. If the United States as a government isn’t going to invest heavily and it’s unlikely that they’re going to, then companies are going to have to invest heavily to make sure they remain competitive.

Because the worst thing especially for employees is if all the jobs go away. I mean, we tried shipping jobs in manufacturing to China or Mexico or places where there was low cost labor and that didn’t work out so well.

I come from Detroit, Natalie. And what we saw there were more and more factories closed and the city sort of hollowed out. It wasn’t just the jobs in those factories that were closed. It was the jobs in the community, the restaurants, the bars, and the dry cleaners that depended on those factories to be up and running.

We don’t want to do that again.

What we want to do is take advantage of the best technologies available to us. And I think there’s a lot of great technology out there right now. And if employers wait, they’re going to be falling behind.

You know there’s so many small and medium sized companies that never thought that automation might be right for them and are now starting to take a look at this because they recognize this is what you need to do to compete Yeah.

NATALIE [00:11:24] It is amazing how quickly new technologies are coming out, and as we were mentioning earlier, how much easier it is to use something like a collaborative robot to really increase efficiency and productivity. And it’s also amazing, I think some employers would be surprised about the cost associated. I think there’s still some sort of thinking of robots as huge industrial robots that are cost prohibitive. Have you seen more adoption? I mean, you mention the one example with Marlon Steel in Maryland. In the last let’s say five years, have you seen smaller companies really making that investment. And if so why.

JEFF [00:12:19] Yes, we’ve definitely seen more and more small and medium sized companies investing in robotics over the past five years or so. And that’s why I think one of the reasons why we’re at record numbers of robot sales in United States.  

You hit on something earlier: ease of use. A lot of these smaller and medium sized companies don’t have the engineering resources to implement big robot systems. They don’t have the floor space to implement with traditional industrial robots that need to be safeguarded. So, they’re very much intrigued by collaborative robots.

Now just because they’re easier to use, just because they may be less expensive upfront, doesn’t make them right for every application. But even then, if companies were intrigued enough by collaborative robots to learn about them, they often find one for their particular application. Traditional industrial robots would work, now that the prices of traditional industrial robots have fallen dramatically as well. So, I mean if you’re out there trying to buy any kind of robot, the cost has come down radically over the years.