Lithuanian furniture industry employees shared their fears: they can be changed very quickly

The word “robot” was first used in 1920. So, robots are celebrating their centenary. Their population is constantly growing as they are increasingly applied in manufacturing, service sectors or households.

Three basic rules

Meanwhile, a person experiences increasing anxiety about his future job. Answering questions about what and how a person will work in a few years is not easy. Especially when the question of whether a person will have a job becomes the subject of discussion, KTU writes in a press release.

The author of the word “robot” belongs to the Czech playwright and journalist Karel Čapek. In his work “Rosumo Universal Robots”, he instructs robots to do jobs that people don’t like and don’t want to do. By the way, the word itself translated from Czech means “forced labor”.

And in the case of violence, there can be dissatisfaction, as happened in K. Čapek’s cake when robots started killing people. So, 20 years later, writer Isaac Asimov formulated three rules of robotics that became the moral code for the development and use of robots. One of the rules states that a robot cannot harm a human.

Today’s robots are significantly different from those described in science fiction. Furthermore, since the first robot was “employed” at the General Motors plant in 1959. Die casting operations, the adaptability of robots and their ability to perform a variety of jobs have expanded.

The manufacturing sector is a leader

Today, we find robots not only in factories, but also in other sectors such as warehouse management, logistics, financial services, transportation, medicine, education, tourism or journalism. Thus, in principle, robots can do more than just “dirty, dangerous, or boring” work that is not attractive to humans.

Statistics show that the manufacturing sector leads the use of robots. According to the International Federation of Robotics, since 2010. The implementation of industrial robots in factories grew by 11% annually and in 2018, more than 400,000 new industrial robots were installed worldwide.

Robots are used primarily in the electronics and automotive manufacturing sectors. China, Japan, the United States, the Republic of Korea and Germany are among the leaders in the deployment of industrial robots. Although the pandemic is slowing the deployment of robots, in the long term the adaptability of robots is expected to increase and intensify.

As robots improve, their ability to perform various tasks increases, man gradually loses his unique position, when only he and no one else could do the job. At the same time, it turns out that robots have certain advantages over humans: they can work 7 days a week, 24 hours a day, they don’t get tired of routine work, they work closely, they don’t get tired, they don’t complain and they don’t They make no claims to employers.

Also, buying a robot is a one-time cost, as companies do not have to pay salaries or other taxes afterwards. As a result, companies are changing their traditional patterns of production or service provision and “employing” more and more robots, increasing productivity, reducing costs, ensuring consistent product quality, and staying competitive.

How does a person feel?

With the increasing use of technology-based solutions by organizations, the question arises of how a person feels. How does a person feel when he hears the story that robots were installed in the factory and some people had to search for other activities, or maybe they even lost their jobs?

How does a person feel when a robotic production line and his colleagues are installed in his factory, or maybe he even has to work on it himself? In these situations, a person’s anxiety that their work is in a “risk zone”, that it can be replaced by robots, can appear and increase.

In scientific literature, this condition is called job insecurity of an employee, which is described as an employee’s subjective fear of the continuity and stability of an existing job. Job insecurity is a subjectively perceived unwanted opportunity to lose an existing job in the future, as well as fear and anxiety about the likelihood of losing it.

It is important to note that job insecurity is considered a source of stress that has a negative impact on both the employee and the organization. The impact is possible in the short and long term and manifests itself in the employee’s health, the employee’s attitudes towards work and the organization, and the quality of the employee’s work.

Men are more concerned

In Lithuania, the implementation of robots is still gaining momentum, as only 3% use robots in their activities. operating companies. One of the sectors whose development is associated with modern technological equipment and the automation of production processes is the production of furniture. An example is the furniture group SBA, which actively robotizes and automates the production processes of its companies, installing several robots each year.

So the question is, are workers in the furniture manufacturing sector anxious about work? How strongly is the feeling of insecurity expressed? How does this affect job performance? A pilot study of companies in the furniture manufacturing sector was sought and answers to these questions were sought.

A pilot study conducted by researchers from the Faculty of Economics and Business of Kaunas University of Technology (supervising associate professor Živilė Stankevičiūtė, co-authors Prof. Eglė Staniškienė and PhD student Joana Ramanauskaitė) involved 350 furniture factory workers working on lines robotic production facilities.
61.4 percent. study participants were men, 41.4 percent. he had a college degree. From an age perspective, 50.3 percent. respondents were born in 1981-2000, 35 percent. – 1965-1980, 9.7 percent. – 1946 – 1964, the remaining respondents were born in 2001. and after.

The study revealed that employees feel an average sense of insecurity: on a scale of 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree), insecurity was rated at 2.76 points. By the way, men feel more insecure about work than women.

Similarly, workers born between 1965 and 1980. feel more anxious about job retention than other generations of workers during the period. However, in general, furniture workers working on robotic production lines do not consider their work to be in the “risk zone”.

The higher the anxiety, the worse the results

Why is that? The explanation relates to the fact that respondents are already working with robots. Humans are considered sufficiently skilled and competent to work with technology and understand the functional separation between human and robot functionality.

The situation was different due to the results of the work. Respondents rated the results of their work as very good (4.11 out of 5 points). This is in line with the results of other studies, as people tend to rate their achievements even better than they actually are. By the way, respondents of different gender, education and age evaluated their work results similarly, no significant differences were found.

As already mentioned, job insecurity can have negative consequences for workers and organizations. This is exactly what the study results showed. According to the results, as employees become more insecure about having a job in the future, their performance deteriorates.

Therefore, the key message of the study is that the more an employee who works in a robotic line feels more anxiety, anxiety and fear about their work, the worse their work performance will be.

The forecasts and trends are unequivocal: the farther away, the more robots will be “hired.” Recognizing that people’s job insecurity is an unavoidable reality these days, organizations could and should take action on employee anxiety about losing their jobs.
management and mitigation.

How to protect an employee?

Clear directions for organizational development, clear policies and procedures for employees are the starting point to reduce fear. Accurate, open and timely communication and employee participation in decision making reduces the unpredictability of future events in the organization and, at the same time, the anxiety of losing a job.

In this situation, the direct managers of the employees also play an important role, as the latter increase the level of knowledge of the employees by providing feedback and creating a supportive environment, which leads to a decrease in the uncertainty of the situation and anxiety about losing responsibilities in the organization.

When installing robots, it is important to keep in mind one of the essential rules formulated by Isaac Asimov: a robot cannot harm a person, including growing anxiety about having a job in the future.