Today’s workforce relates to information technology, international trade and globalization, and social trends affecting businesses and workers. Changes in the business workforce are linked to information technology applications. Also, international cooperation and agreements influence business opportunities for companies’ human-resource strategic planning. Moreover, social trends affect workers’ perceptions of and preferences for jobs and employers’ human resource management. These trends determine workers’ availability in fitting the human resource needs of business organizations.
Managing the changing workforce requires insight and foresight into what business organizations need and will need to optimize the benefits of current trends and expected future trends influencing the business workforce and the work environment.
Trends and Changes in the Business Workforce and the Nature of Work
The trends significant to business organizations and their workforce include work involving the Internet. For example, telecommuting, work-from-home arrangements, virtual teams, and hybrid work teams are increasingly considered in business management and organizational design in terms of their benefits to businesses and workers. These options are often included in addressing human resource management issues and related staffing needs in multinational business operations. These options are also increasingly applied in local business operations, as companies continue to evolve to benefit from available technologies and to address work-life balance.
Automation and robotics have long been a factor in changes in the business workforce and will continue to do so as more companies implement technological solutions to increase speed and efficiency. Automation and robotics are especially significant in manufacturing businesses, such as Tesla, Ford, General Motors, Toyota, Nissan, BMW, and other automotive companies. Through automation and robotics, business organizations can increase speed and efficiency, reduce error rates, and increase consistency in output quality. This technological trend leads to the reduction or minimization of some companies’ need for workers in manual-mechanical jobs. As a result, the business workforce shifts to have a bigger percentage of workers for non-manual-mechanical jobs.
Artificial intelligence is a related technological factor affecting the business workforce and work processes in organizations today. Continuing investments and developments in AI lead to firms’ shift to integrating AI tools in jobs and work processes, including business management and decision-making processes. This trend reflects the overall shift of technology providers and technology users in terms of reliance on artificial intelligence. This technological trend affecting the business workforce is also dependent on IBM, AMD, Nvidia, Intel, and many other companies that are increasing their investments in AI development and related technological endeavors.
Why Outsourcing will Continue
Outsourcing shapes today’s workforce and will continue to do so. The role of outsourcing is especially significant in jobs that can be fulfilled through the Internet. The following are some of the reasons that support the continuation of outsourcing as a defining factor in the changing workforce:
- Cost advantages
- Specialization of firms and countries
- Increasing ease of outsourcing through the Internet
- Taxes and regulations and related costs and complexities
Cost advantages are among the typical reasons why firms continue to outsource jobs and work processes. Some cost advantages are linked to labor cost differences among countries or regions. For example, many Asian countries have cheaper labor compared to the United States, Canada, and the EU. This labor cost difference motivates western firms to outsource business processes to Asian firms. Even within the US, for example, firms can outsource their business processes to other US firms that can fulfill such processes at lower costs based on economies of scale.
The specialization of firms relates to cost advantages and motivates outsourcing. Specialized firms have the expertise, resources, and economies of scale for certain business processes. As a result, companies can benefit from outsourcing business processes to such specialized providers. For example, Disney and Netflix focus their streaming businesses on content creation, curation, and marketing, while relying on the IT expertise and economies of scale of Amazon’s AWS (Amazon Web Services) for hosting and distributing content over the Internet. As a result, Disney and Netflix avoid high investments for data confidentiality, integrity, and availability (the CIA triad). The specialization of firms shifts the business workforce to concentrate according to the availability of jobs. For instance, a company specializing in manufacturing a widget will likely shift the business workforce in its location to increase the concentration or availability of workers specific to that widget’s manufacturing.
The specialization of countries also contributes to the continuation of outsourcing. Some countries that have found success in providing business process outsourcing continue to heavily invest in IT infrastructure to support even more services for business process outsourcing. For example, India and the Philippines have become major providers of customer support and other services to firms in other countries, in this regard. This specialization makes India and the Philippines attractive options for business organizations to outsource some of their business processes to these countries and gain advantages, like cost reduction linked to cheaper labor costs, economies of scale, and lower regulatory barriers and requirements. This specialization of countries and the related international outsourcing shift certain types of jobs to other countries. This shift defines the kinds of jobs available and, consequently, the career choices that local populations make.
The increasing ease of outsourcing through the Internet is a trend linked to the improving IT infrastructure of countries around the world, as well as firms’ adoption of more advanced IT assets. For example, as countries develop their IT infrastructure, local firms can better connect to firms in other countries. Also, with more investment in advanced IT, firms become more capable of speedily and efficiently providing their services to other business organizations. This condition enhances the cost-effectiveness and ease of outsourcing and motivates firms to outsource jobs or business processes.
Taxes and regulations are another reason for the continuation of outsourcing. For example, a US company seeking to reduce business costs and complexity linked to taxes and OSHA regulations may find it financially opportunistic to outsource some of its business processes to firms in other countries. In this way, the US firm could free up resources and invest these resources to improve business performance.
Technology and Its Role in the Changing Business Workforce
Technology is a key defining factor in the changes happening to the nature of work and the business workforce, as reflected in the significance of technology, especially information technology, in the trends affecting business organizations and the continuation of outsourcing. Technology will continue as a central factor in the changes happening to the business workforce, considering the growth and development of technology firms, whose products facilitate many of the changes in the workforce happening today. For example, consumer electronics and online services from Apple, Google (Alphabet), Microsoft, Samsung, Facebook (Meta), and other firms function as tools used in outsourcing, work-from-home arrangements, telecommuting, virtual teams, and hybrid teams.
The increasing interconnectedness of everything through the Internet is another technological trend that shapes the business workforce and the nature of work. This interconnectedness involves current consumer electronics and IT products, the increasing integration of IT into everyday devices, like appliances and business machines, and the widespread development of smart devices. This trend can motivate even more shifts and changes in business organizations, the business workforce, and the nature and characteristics of work, for the purpose of the business advantages of the technological benefits available from smart devices and the Internet of Things.
Some Challenges and Issues
The adoption of virtual teams, telecommuting, work-from-home arrangements, and a hybrid workforce can lead to changes in schedules, job locations, work environment characteristics, and employee motivation. Managing virtual work and organizations can come with challenges in balancing the needs of the business organization and individual workers, and the expected benefits of information technology and related tools. For example, in a firm that uses telecommuting, managers need to ensure that telecommuting workers are effectively motivated despite changes in their work environment. The physical environment of telecommuting employees requires consideration in planning human resource management programs to support telecommuting plans in the business organization.
References
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