Does human resources still need humans?
Youd think one line of work that would be safe from the robot takeover is human resources. But some companies are working on it. A recent New York Times investigation laid out how Amazons automated systems for managing warehouse workers led to unreasonable scheduling, delayed benefits and inadvertent firings. I spoke with Peter Cappelli, a professor of management and director of the Center for Human Resources at the University of Pennsylvanias Wharton School. I asked him what a traditional HR department used to do thats now done by software. The following is an edited transcript of our conversation. Peter Cappelli: You know, I think theres a lot of paper-pushing things that have been automated and work pretty well. Its just putting stuff into software. So, filling out forms, for example, we probably all do those a lot. Also, chat bots, which are pretty common. The same sort of thing that youd get if you call customer service, although, we hope it works better than that. It answers your questions and moves you along the trails. The things which are kind of on the horizon are things that involve machine learning, and building algorithms that will actually help you predict things like, predict who will be a good employee or possibly even predict who will be a bad employee. And those are the more controversial ones. Peter Capelli (Amanda Stevenson)  Amy Scott: That seems pretty scary, knowing what we know about mistakes that algorithms make. Cappelli: One of the big differences that algorithms make in terms of mistakes is they make mistakes at scale. For example, if youre thinking about hiring, generally speaking, we do the hiring really poorly. We push the problem often on the line managers because its cheap to do, and each manager does it differently. So, say they actually discriminate against somebody, well, theres one manager and one problem that maybe you could identify. Once you have an algorithm that makes hiring decisions, and it makes a mistake, its a class action mistake, because its making the same mistake for everybody. And youre now in big trouble as an employer. Cappelli: All those things, and generally, you have to show that the practices youre using actually work. If you didnt build the tool, you have to still be able to demonstrate that it works on your employees. Cappelli: Sure. Its used to do things which were just not doing now. For example, people are starting to be able to move systematically inside their companies. Sometimes its not so obvious. So, the algorithms could do that for you, and there are companies and vendors who will do that. Yeah, maybe some sophisticated counselor could do it for you, but we got rid of those people a while ago, so its not being done. Cappelli: I think the thing I was concerned about was the assumption, in particular, by a lot of business leaders that this is just the smart thing to do  that getting rid of employees, if you can, is the smart thing to do. And getting rid of their decisions, in particular, is smart, because you can do them better if an engineer makes them. Of course, theres a long history of this in the U.S. It goes back to Frederick Taylor, in the 1920s in scientific management  the idea that engineers know better, how to do things like pick your schedule or your assignments. The problem is, first, they dont always know better, and sometimes they can make big mistakes. And then second, even if they could do it as well as you do, people like to make those decisions themselves. They feel more invested in the result if theyre making decisions, and theyre involved in it, than if a piece of software is doing it for them. And the other thing is they just dont understand, if software has made the decision, why it happened. Therefore you generate lots of complaints and lots of grievances and people are irritate if they dont know, for example, why they were scheduled to work on Saturday, two weekends in a row. And theres no supervisor to complain to because they didnt make the decision. Scott: In your piece, you wrote that the popularity of the engineering approach versus you know, empowering employees to make their own decisions and solve problems, has increased during economic downturns when workers dont have the power really to quit even though they dont like it, and has fallen in upturns when workers do jump ship or protest. And I wonder, are we seeing that now as the economy recovers, people starting to say, you know what, I dont want to work like that, at least not for what youre paying me?  Cappelli: Its a really good question. You look at the labor market now, you see a lot of companies complaining that they cant hire. I think thats largely because theyre all trying to hire at once now, which doesnt happen very often, but I think employers are starting to pay attention to what it is that employees might like. And one of the reasons this is troubling is theres been a ton of research showing that employee involvement in decisions really works. They make better decisions about things like how we do our jobs, because they can see more. Theyre right on top of it in a way that an engineer might not. They care more about the work when they make some of the decisions or are involved in it. One of the downsides for managers is that it takes effort and a different kind of effort to get employee involvement to work. You actually have to come down and talk to people and be on the shop floor. You cant just stay up on high. And if you care about managing culture, and you want to get your organization to operate well, you need the employees to be engaged in it, and that requires a very different kind of effort. You know, I havent seen anything thats gotten close to even trying to do that. And as we know, a lot of conflict resolution comes from simply getting people face to face with each other, especially with an authority figure like a boss in between them. Its bringing people together, putting some peer pressure on them, or some social pressure on them, and its just almost impossible to imagine how youre going to improve on that with software. Scott: Well, yeah. You talked about truck drivers in your piece. Workers at Amazon reported being afraid to take a bathroom break, because it would show up as time off task. Cappelli: We have run this experiment before, after scientific management in the 1930s, and we tried to do it with an engineering-driven approach for the next 30 or 40 years. And we basically were taught by the Japanese that engaging employees in these issues is just way better. If you can trust your employees, you can save a lot of money on monitoring, and this is an almost ideological divide within management between those executives who feel you can trust your employees, or at the very least, you should spend the time and effort to create a kind of organization where you can trust them, versus those who believe you cant. Were seeing this even with work from home now, which was, frankly, a big exercise in trusting your employees, because we had no choice. But then, toward the end of the process, we see lots of companies investing a lot of money in tattle software of various kinds to monitor what youre doing at home on your computer, so, kind of the opposite. And its a big ideological divide. Exclusive: this investigation took us all the way to Bezos and the heart of Amazons employment model. We have a lot of new information, and Twitter convention says I need to start shooting it out this second. But I dont feel ready. (Thread.) https://t.co/7cpC7Bk2oE  Jodi Kantor (@jodikantor) June 15, 2021  Related Links: Insight from Amy Scott  I talked about Peter Cappellis article in the Harvard Business Review. Its a great overview of two opposing management theories about how to get most of out workers. Theory X says workers perform better when theyre tightly controlled and directed. Theory Y says we contribute much more when we have freedom to express ideas and take initiative. Theory Y had been on the rise for the past 40 years, but Cappelli says, after the Great Recession, the pendulum started swinging the other way. Amazon is a good example. If you missed that New York Times investigation, entitled, The Amazon Customers Dont See, its definitely worth a read. It focuses on the companys JFK8 warehouse in New York. One thing that struck me was how David Niekerk, a former Amazon executive, characterized the companys attitude toward its hourly workers. He said Amazon founder Jeff Bezos didnt want those workers staying at the company very long, because company data showed people became less motivated to work hard over time. So, Amazon intentionally limited upward mobility, stopped guaranteed wage increases after three years, and even paid low-skilled workers to leave. Niekerk said Bezos believed people are inherently lazy, which is a pretty dim view of the frontline workforce that helped make Bezos the richest man on the planet. On the topic of HR tech, Reuters and others reported earlier this month about Walmarts plans to give free phones to about half its U.S. employees by the end of the year. More than 700,000 retail workers are eligible for the phones which come preloaded with a new app for scheduling shifts, clocking in to work, and accessing a voice-activated personal assistant to locate merchandise and answer customer questions. Workers will only be able to access work-related apps while on the clock, but can use them as personal devices after hours. The phones retail for about $500 each. We dont know what Walmart paid, but its apparently worth it to have workers stay in constant communication.