Foundations of Work and Employment in the 21st Century

This essay provides insight into the foundations of work and employment in the 21st century, exploring the impact of automation and robotization on industrial conflict and job profiles. It discusses the potential for automation to improve productivity and create new job types, as well as the challenges and opportunities it presents for companies and workers. The essay also examines the perspectives of pluralism and radicalism in understanding workplace conflict.

Running head: MANAGEMENT
Foundations of Work and Employment
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author Note:

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Introduction:
The essay provides an insight into the foundations of work and employment in the 21st
century due to the advances in the technology. It provides an insight into whether robotization
and automation makes the aspect of the industrial conflict a thing of the past during this
particular century. In fact, the essay portrays how a segment of the automation technology
impacts workplace and work. The essay also portrays what the companies and the educational
institutes are undergoing for closing the existing gap that would worsen without adjustments to
system for preparing the existing and the future workers with the skills that remains on demand.
The essay further tries to establish the fact that with every new wave of automation and
robotization there is a fear of the swatches of profession becoming extinct thereby making
conflict a thing of the past. There have been instances when these advances have resulted in the
adaptations of the job profiles where skills of the typist and the switchboard operator have been
replaced by the role of the personal assistant. In certain cases, automation and robotization have
replaced certain tasks but led to the creation of the greater demand for job profile.
Discussion:
The increasing level of automation and robotization of the work during twenty first
century will make the industrial conflict a thing of the past. According to Jacques (2017), the
increasing automation and robotization has brought about a change in the ways of working as
well as living. Automation not only improves the productivity but enables the nation and the
company in not only remaining but also becoming competitive. It enables the establishment of
the newer business models that remains increasingly focused on the production of newer goods
and services thereby enhancing the efficiency and the flexibility of the companies in supplying
those goods and services (Blikstein 2013).

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David (2015) put forward that increased level of automation have a past history of
creating positive impact on the job quality and the remuneration. There hardly exists any
historical evidence where automation and robotization have proved to be detrimental to the
overall levels of employment. However, there has always been a fear about how the new changes
have been implemented with every wave of the technological change. In this particular essay the
fear revolves on the how enhanced automation and robotization leads to job replacement and
creation of intelligent robots that not only outsmarted but also controlled the humans. It has been
noticed that the public attitudes towards automation and robotization differs across the countries
between the developed and the developing economy and also within the developed economies
(Schwab 2017). It has been found that the developed economies like China and the Japan
generally have a positive discourse towards the robots; some of it is has been found to be
cultural. For instance, the positivity in the attitude towards the robots in a country like Japan can
be explained through cultural heritage of animism that accords the non human objects.
According to Hancock (2014), what seems important is how the automation especially
the robotization is employed in the present times. It can be analyzed with certain degree of
accuracy of how the uptake of the robots impacts the industry, business model and the workers in
the coming 10 years. It therefore represented a positive picture where the quality of the work and
its remuneration will improves that will lead to the creation and the improvement of the newer
job types. Increasing robotization and automation have also increased the options for the people
in the job market but they have been limited by the physical disability or the reducing physical
strength due to ageing. This is a scenario in which the small and medium sized companies that
accounted for closer to 90 percent of the business in economies remains in a better position for
competing and assuming that the newer roles across the globalized supply chain network. This

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also determines the future of most of the societies that presently remains unprepared. Shrinking
level of the workforces as a result of ageing in the developing economies remains compounded
by the shortage of skills in existing workforce in various other industrial sectors.
Kolberg and Zühlke (2015) put across that Automation does not represent a newer
occurrence and contributed to the significant shifts in the employment through 20th century. The
widespread adoption of gas powered tractors during 20th century benefitted the farmers and
ensured more efficient use of the labor along with enhanced production. This contributed to the
decline of the agricultural employment from 40 percent to less than 2 percent thereby reducing
the chances of conflict.
Until recently, it has been found that automation and robotization have displaced the
predictable routine task that could have been easily programmed. This involved implementation
of robots in not only the computers but also the factories for replacing occupations. In the 21st
century advances machine learning and artificial intelligence enables the automation of the
judgmental decisions and the non routine task between the employees and the employers
(Rotman, 2013). Combined with the advances of the machine learning and mobile robotics non
routine machine tasks were automated.
According to the McKinsey report (2015), the estimates indicated that potential for the
workplace automation depended on the type of occupation. It has been found that less than 5
percent of the occupations were fully automated. The report also put across that close to 49
percent of the present days work would be automated using the available technology by the year
2055. McKinsey throws confidence around the timeline by putting across suggestions that
similar degrees of might occur twenty years from the present times which could result in

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complete abolition of conflict between the employees and the employers. On estimating the
technical potential of automation, McKinsey report have observed various factors that impacts
the extent and timing of the penetration of automation and robotization in the different
occupations. This includes the technical complications in the particular job applications, capital
investments required for developing and deploying the solutions, cost of labor including the
liabilities and benefits and the social and the regulatory acceptance of the employers or the
employees.
Pluralist Perspective:
According to Falkner (2017), this particular view of the organization represented received
orthodoxy of the western societies and remains associated with the view of the society as the
post capitalist. The perspective however depends on the assumption that an organization
comprises of the individuals belonging to various unique sectional groups each having its own
objectives, interest and leadership. The key groups within the perspective who find them at
opposite ends of scales are the managers and the workers. As per this perspective, there can be a
number of issues like pay, bonus, working hours and working conditions that gives rise to the
conflict.
The organization is often perceived as competitive and multi structured in terms of
leadership, authority, grouping and loyalty which give rise to the complicated tensions and the
competing claims that requires to be managed for the maintenance of feasible collaborative
structure(10). During the 21st century, the pluralist perspective included widespread distribution
of the power and the authority within the society, separation of ownership from management,

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industrial conflict, political separation and the institutionalization and acceptance of the conflict
in both the spheres.
As the pluralist perspective is based on the assumption of comprising of various groups
having own interest, aim and leadership, it might result in conflict and competition amongst the
various groups that results in tensions (Berger 2018). Thus, the pluralist organization has various
sources of authority and loyalty in the trade union, groups and the other sectional interest.
Organizations following the pluralist approach often overviews disagreements and conflict of
interest between the workers and the managers over distribution of the profits as a normal and
inescapable thing. According to pluralist perspective, the conflict between the management and
the employee conflict is both inevitable and rational and often arises from the varied roles of the
managerial and the employee groups. The role of the management would bend lesser towards
controlling and enforcing and more towards the coordination and the persuasion. Trade unions
are considered the legitimate representatives of the employees. Here conflict is dealt through
collective bargaining and is not considered a thing if it is channeled towards the evolution of a
positive change. Boyd (2016) stated that realistic managers should have an acceptance for
conflict to occur. It is to be noted that from the pluralist perspective, trade unions represents
legitimate organizations that enables the employee groups in influencing the management
decisions. This perspective also accepts the fact that the employees possess loyalties towards the
organizations besides the management and the trade unions act as the legitimate source of such
loyalties.
Radicalist Perspective:

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The radical perspective is also known as Marxist perspective and depends on the nature
of the society surrounding an organization (Alexander & Van Knippenberg, 2014). It emphasizes
and assumes that organizations usually exist within the capitalist society where the product
system is owned privately and the profit acts as the key influence on the company’s policy with
the control over the production enforced downwards by the managerial agent of the owners. This
particular perspective identifies that inequality of the power and the economic health to have
roots in capitalist economic system. Thus, the conflict is seen as the natural outcome of the
capitalism which implies that the trade unions are the natural response to the workers who face
exploitation by capital. While the perspective puts across periods of agreement nevertheless the
Marxist view would act as the institution of joint regulations that would enhance the position of
the management since the perspective presumes the continuation of the capitalism instead of
challenging it (Schryer, 2014).
Conclusion:
On a concluding note, it can be said that the humans will act central towards the
effectiveness of the automations strategies that would act as the means for improving the
productivity and the economic growth. Similar to the past, the wave of the automation and
robotization will not only lead to alteration of the job profiles thereby requiring some of the
workers in re skilling the existing industry or ensure a move towards a different industry. The
essay however portrays, how the adoption of robotization leads to better paying and fulfilling
jobs. The present problem does not lie in the disappearance of the job but the lack of the
matching skills in the job openings. Thus companies requires continuations of closer
collaboration trend for ensuring that it remains directed towards the supplying of the specific on

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demand skills along with equipping the workers with communication, decision making and
communication skills.

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References:
Alexander, L., & Van Knippenberg, D. (2014). Teams in pursuit of radical innovation: A goal
orientation perspective. Academy of Management Review, 39(4), 423-438.
Berger, P.L.,( 2018). The limits of social cohesion: Conflict and mediation in pluralist societies.
Routledge.
Blikstein, P., (2013). Digital fabrication and ‘making’in education: The democratization of
invention. FabLabs: Of machines, makers and inventors, 4, 1-21.
Boyd, D.R.,( 2016). Dominance concealed through diversity: Implications of inadequate
perspectives on cultural pluralism. In Becoming of Two Minds about Liberalism (121-
145). SensePublishers, Rotterdam.
Chui, M., Manyika, J. & Miremadi, M.,( 2015). Four fundamentals of workplace
automation. McKinsey Quarterly, 29(3), 1-9.
David, H.,( 2015). Why are there still so many jobs? The history and future of workplace
automation. Journal of economic perspectives, 29(3),3-30.
Falkner, R., (2017). Business power and conflict in international environmental politics.
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Hancock, P.A.,( 2014). Automation: how much is too much?. Ergonomics, 57(3),.449-454.
Jaques, E. (2017). Requisite organization: A total system for effective managerial organization
and managerial leadership for the 21st century. Routledge.

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Kolberg, D. & Zühlke, D.,( 2015). Lean automation enabled by industry 4.0 technologies. IFAC-
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Rotman, D.,( 2013). How technology is destroying jobs. Technology Review, 16(4),28-35.
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Schwab, K., (2017). The fourth industrial revolution. Currency.