Digital Employment

                   What to Know about Digital Employment

                                                                    by: Group14
What is Digital Employment?


Digital Employment is the use of business technology as a way to supply labor in firms/businesses. In the past digital employment or “workers” were considered individuals with technological skills. Today we see it as “software robots'' which perform many tasks complementary toward a business's operations.

In order to see the evolution of this definition it is important to look at the evolution of the computer and its capabilities. The use of computers in a way to compliment a persons goals took birth in 1971, with the first email to be sent. This type of business information technology has broken barriers for simpler, more efficient communication. According to “Guinness World Records”, Ray Tomlinson was the first person to send an email. Tomlinson created email by exploring a personal project, experimenting to see if two computers could communicate with each other.

By 1971, the use of computers was seen throughout many industries - NASA began using a computer for research. The use of computers became integrated in the workplace due to the higher amounts of memory to utilize the use of filing and communications.

Now in 2023 we use technology for many uses of entertainment, tools in the workplace and even educational instruments. In today's world digital employment looks more like software, which is defined by Google as “the programs and other operating information used by a computer”. It’s important to see how digital employment affects us today. According to the World Economic Forum, it is crucial for employers to utilize many technologies and software, as this is attractive to Generation Z, who are now entering the workforce.

Digital employment streams a more efficient use of time and effort in the workforce. Argued by Generation Z, who grew up with technology, is essential to productive and efficient use of labor. For example, using a CRM (Customer Relations Management) software in many service led industries allow for more follow ups to be scheduled, data to be filed along with generating prospects for reps in a firm.

The use of digital employees has made a huge impact on the publishing industry. With the use of digital employment this industry was able to save more money on labor – from stamping together a newspaper – word by word – to use different software processes to upload and edit. With digital advancements the publishing industry is able to upgrade distribution. The idea of printed papers and books was thought to be plummeting, however the publishing industry is still high-yielding according to Forbes. The use of technology in this industry has many upgrades beyond the distribution. It can be seen through the near instantaneous access to information, we have the capabilities of reading an article about an event happening around the world as it happens.

Overall, digital employment is seen through any industry, taking orders on a computer at a restaurant to scientists predicting the impact of Global Warming with the aide of the computer and technology. Digital employees have been able to evolve with the advancements of careers, by aiding in many jobs to allow for versatile work ability.CONS

Digital employees do allow for a more versatile work ability, however there are several downsides to using more technology than people power. It can create lots of distractions, with cell phones, ipads, laptops and every other type of device, the potential for distractions is giant. There is a lot less human interaction, which leads to a whole slew of problems. Lastly it also may encourage laziness, not always but it can. Now let's dive deeper into all of those topics and expound on them.

The potential for distractions amounts to nearly infinite. With more technology in the workplace than ever before that leaves the world at every person’s fingertips, it just begs for a distraction. Most people have a smartphone and either a tablet, laptop, or some sort of desktop computer at their office job. This means they have at least 1-4 things that could distract them from work at any given time. Youtube or TikTok is only a swipe away. Human technology has advanced so quickly in just a short time that it is hard to adapt to the use of said technology in the workplace.

With the precedence of technology human interactions are at an all-time low. People no longer need to have face to face contact to communicate with each other. That takes away a big part of the personal connection that people have with each other at work. If Jim could have just texted Pam or zoomed her from home the whole relationship would never have happened in The Office. The culture that would be taken away by technology is irreparable to our society.

A big issue is that it makes it a lot harder to form mentorships with people. A big part of working at a place is that you find someone more experienced, and they help you learn the ropes and train you to be a better worker. It is a lot harder to mentor someone when you cannot take them out to lunch but have to hop on a zoom call because they live 30 minutes away and do not want to commute. With a lack of mentorship then employees will grow at a much slower rate. Specialists in the army are promoted a lot faster when they have an NCO giving them advice. Human interaction is also just healthy for people.

This last bit is slightly controversial, some agree, and others argue the opposite. With more technology in the workplace and being able to work remotely it allows for people to be a lot lazier. If you work remotely it lets you wake up whenever and not need to follow any sort of schedule. It destroys the whole classic work week that had a schedule. It gets really easy for people to become complacent and push things off until the end of the week and then rush everything making it hard to get things done well.

Overall technology probably is not bad, but it does have its cons instead of all pros. The choice is still the companies.
Pros:

Digital employees have broken the barriers of efficiency and compatibility in a work place. This technology allows for benefits including:

• eliminating time consuming tasks
• work around the clock
• learn by experience
• enhance business adaptability,
• easy integration and employment
• offer a solution to employee resignation
• and being Interactive

What does eliminating time consuming tasks provide a business? This allows the business to put time into other resources and shift focus to tasks that cannot be managed digitally. An instance of this over the years is a Bank can now accept 80% of loan requests in seconds compared to days before. This allows for companies to speed up its production increasing sales and customers.

The human body can only take so much work put on them, according to this article on Atlassian, “ This is how many hours you should really be working” it discusses the productivity fallout after a certain amount of hours worked. It states that “ Research tells us that productivity falls sharply after 50 hours per week, and drops off a cliff after 55 hours. Additionally, not taking at least one full day off per week leads to lower hourly output overall” Having Digital employees eliminates this productivity fall off that is experienced with human employees.

Experience builds adeptness and overall capabilities. These AI generated employees become more efficient and accurate with the more data that they deal with. These employees will be able to track past customers and provide efficient customer service at a lower cost of labor.

Employee resignation is a big problem that many companies have to face. In this article by Jack Flynn, “20 STUNNING GREAT RESIGNATION STATISTICS [2023]: WHY ARE AMERICANS LEAVING THEIR JOBS?”

(https://www.zippia.com/advice/great-resignation-statistics/#:~:text=47%20million%20Americans%20left%20their%20jobs%20in%202021.,from%20their%20jobs%20in%202021.) It displays a chart of the recent years and the amount of people who left their jobs in the U.S.









2021 recorded over 47 million Americans leaving their Jobs. With digital employees, this worry of resignation and employment will not be a worry for HR managers.

Technology is only advancing and provides many resources to business managers as they seek to improve efficiency, costs, and productivity. Digital employees offer many great benefits to the company. These employees integrate the use of RPA (Robotic Process Automation), NLP (Natural Language Processing), and machine learning to create an entire new way to provide customer service, generate sales, and create a

Learn more at:

-https://www.knowit.eu/services/experience/digital-strategy-and-analysis/strategy-and-digitalization/knowits-take-on-tomorrow/eight-technologies/

-https://www.computerworld.com/article/3668588/digital-employee-experience-dex-employee-retention-tool.html

https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/news/60at60/2015/8/1971-first-ever-email-392973



https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2023/02/digital-company-transformation-work/