Discord between technology and humans

Zomato’s ability to reduce its home-delivery time to 10 minutes for select menus of deliverables, as opposed to the current 30-minute paradigm, is clearly a result of tremendous improvement on several fronts. There is no doubt that technology would have played a big role in enabling Zomato to make this significant reduction in delivery times. Such a leap in technological improvement is to be commended. Instead, social media discussions about the safety of delivery agents have turned ballistic. Why?

Amazon is considered “one of the most influential economic and cultural forces in the world. It is a perfect example of how business success can be built on the foundation of information technology. The vast warehouses operated by Amazon are the backbone of its business.” Altogether these units, like the one in Staten Island, have fully automated almost every task, even recruiting daily wage workers. The company’s employment process is based on algorithms for recruiting daily wage workers without single human contact. This large investment in automation also paid dividends. The Staten Island warehouse has helped Amazon break shipping records, reach stratospheric sales, and book profits equal to the past three years’ profits. But all of these positives Points notwithstanding, why did the blue-collar workers in this facility want to form trade unions?

In light of the widespread role of technology in the success of companies like Amazon and Zomato, there will always be a tendency to consider minor human-resource issues as potential outliers. The chances of a delivery agent meeting with an accident are slim. This could be less than India’s road accident average. Blue-collar workers at an Amazon warehouse are only involved in small tasks, like placing items on a robotic shelf. Compared to the benefits from technology, employee-related pain points in tech-driven companies are actually small. But how does the human story get so much prominence?

Humans always make comparisons with respect to a reference point. On the one hand, there is the vast technical infrastructure that forms the basis on which most modern organizations function. But delivery agents and blue-collar workers are mostly working the least in those organizations. Many employers regard them as an ‘expendable work force’ because it is much easier for them to find replacements. Yet, unlike the all-powerful, opaque and faceless technology infrastructure of an organization, the story of a single delivery agent crisis will always unfold. This is evidence of the widespread role of emotions in all human decisions. Therefore the large rational benefits of technology will always outweigh its emotional consequences on humans. Thus organizations can ignore the disproportionate power of emotions only at their own risk.

Tech companies attach great importance to one group of humans: their end users. For example, Amazon’s mission is to become the most customer-focused company on Earth. Hence a lot of attention is paid to using technology to facilitate every step of the customer’s journey. Hence advances in User Interface (UI) and User Experience (UX) technology have gained prominence. But the cases of Zomato and Amazon are a reminder that end users are not the only humans that an organization needs. There are many more human beings who are part of its path. It is imperative that organizations are seen as caring for all who contribute.

There was a time when ordinary consumers bought a product without thinking about who made it, how it was manufactured. Today, a customer is concerned not only with the final quality of a product or service, but also with how it was made and/or delivered. For example, the end consumer of a food delivery company is concerned not only about the time taken to deliver the product, but also about the safety of the person delivering it. In this context, it is interesting to note that according to Gallup’s latest annual Work and Education survey, 68% of Americans approve of labor unions, their highest approval rating since 1965. This is yet another sign that employees may not have a role in an organization. be ignored.

In the future, companies will pioneer new ways of managing people at scale through technology. These will rely heavily on metrics, apps and chatbots while minimizing human interaction. With the use of new technologies such as food-delivery drones and robots, it may someday be able to eliminate delivery agents altogether. But such an over-reliance on technology should not blind organizations to the role of humans, no matter how small.

Organizations cannot survive by ignoring or trying to steam up the humans who come their way. Incompatible human voices from within should be given as much importance as those of the end users. The big advantage that technology has revealed will not help in suppressing such voices. More likely, it will only make them louder.

Biju Dominic is Chief Promoter, Fractal Analytics and President of FinalMile Consulting