Page 26 - Bizmod Thought Leadership Articles 2020

MARKET TRENDS
• Once the business has confirmed what the end state will look like, this needs to be clearly communicated. The impact on processes, skills, positions and structures should be defined and clear.
• A scenario-based view should be developed that defines not only the changes to employee numbers and roles but is shown over time intervals
• There needs to be an understanding of not only the technology but also the processes, time
and motion studies, roles, competencies and technology
• An agile way of working, with capacity planning is required to create a view of the impact.
The visibility that these scenarios provide are not only important for the business but are crucial for HR engagement and planning in relation to employee reskilling, team changes, retrenchment, etc. Van den Berg warns that these interventions should not be based on people being able to adapt.
She also cautions business leaders to be aware of the detrimental impact of retrenchment. There are definite industrial relations elements that will be affected, but in addition there is the passive aggressive element that will most likely surface in the corporate culture. Passive aggressiveness is a silent killer, sabotaging initiatives and making it difficult, if not impossible, to implement future initiatives. If the approach is one of reskilling, this has significant time and budget implications and cannot be left until the end of the programme.
“To successfully implement large scale robotics and IA initiatives, there needs to be a key focus on employees and the corporate culture, while relying on Change Management to manage the change impact and build resilience,” concludes van den Berg
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