Everyone needs to make a fair wage. I don’t think there is much dispute in this. But with the long-term advantages of robotics versus paying low skilled workers, at some point fast food employees may find themselves out of a job. And there are other farther-reaching impacts to leveraging robotics that may impact all of us.
That robotics are over-taking humans for repetitive jobs is no big news. It has been written about, and discussed often in manufacturing circles, and other industries that rely on repetitive processes. The predictable cost of switching to robots, from unpredictable, and less reliable human workers has great appeal. Given the company, or organization has the capital to design, and implement robots. Unlike human works, robots don’t get sick. They don’t have personal issues, and they don’t ask for higher wages. In fact, they don’t receive wages. Once implemented the ongoing costs are small, around maintenance, and very infrequent repair.
As living costs slowly rise, employees that do repetitive, low-wage jobs will pressure their employers for higher wages, as their buying power shrinks. So, it is only a matter of time before low-wage workers, such as fast food workers are replaced by robots. Although recent demands, and strikes from McDonald's workers may accelerate the process. McDonald’s is an industry that can certainly swing large-scale investments in robotics. So, in time, jobs that are very repetitive will diminish, and all but disappear. The impact for these workers, especially those in Fast Food, will be to retrain to more skilled jobs that robots can’t (yet) do. This is the likely long-term scenario for Fast Food workers, but what is the impact for the rest of us?
Mike Rowe, of Discovery Channel’s “Dirty Jobs”, discussed what part of the impact for society will be as McDonald’s and other replace low-skilled workers with robotics in a recent interview. The first step in understanding the larger impact of losing jobs with repetitive tasks, such as those in fast foot, is to understand where these jobs typically fit in a person’s career. And for most of us, these low paying jobs, such as jobs in fast food, tend to be a “starter” job. One that we tend to take in high school, college, or even just out of college as we look for a professional position that allows us to leverage our college, or technical degrees. So, in addition to (low) wages, what do employees get from taking on a gig in fast food? Well for many of us, it is our first job that teaches us to show up in time, show up every work day (or we don’t get paid), learn how to perform specific tasks, and follow our supervisor’s guidance or even orders. Given the assumption that these low-paying “starter” jobs, especially in fast food, we need to ask ourselves, “if workers don’t learn these basic work habits, and skills in “starter” jobs, where do workers learn them.
My conclusion is that with fast food “starter” jobs going away, most workers will end up learning these basic work habits when they are placed into higher-paying professional, even corporate jobs. And this is the core of the problem. With the inability to learn basic work habits in “starter” jobs, workers will end up making up this learning curve when they are finally placed into a professional job. And they will make mistakes, and need to learn these basic work habits when they are working in their profession. Therefore, and this is the fundamental argument here, overall professionalism levels will flounder, and fall as workers no longer have early training grounds to learn basic good work habits. In short, if we follow the logic all the way through; losing fast-food starter jobs will lead to lower professionalism.
If we accept that the above is a likely scenario, that less jobs in fast food will in the long run lead to less opportunity to learn basic work skills, we need to consider solutions. In short, what will take the place of the low-paying jobs to help young workers learn basic work, and responsibility skills? To answer this question, I believe there is not one single remedy, but a handful of possible options to fill this gap. Being a former Boy Scout, I can see how belonging to a youth group such as Boy Scouts, or Girl Scots can give young people opportunities to take on responsibilities, go through training, and learn to follow the direction of leaders. So, I do see youth groups as one option to close the gap. Another option worth considering is communities, and volunteer work. There are plenty of good causes across the map. Volunteer work has value, and is another possibly “softer” way to expose young workers to completing a task, dedicating to a mission, and seeing the fruits of their efforts. Another possibility is to look to local governments for first job opportunities. Often these low-paying jobs are in supporting parks, and recreation. The young workers do get a salary, but perhaps the real value is in training young workers on how to be on time, follow instruction, and learn job responsibility.
With the rise in robotics, and as more, and more companies are in a position to take advantage of robots, we will see low-wage jobs shrink. Jobs that are repetitive, such as those in the fast food industry are especially vulnerable. As low-paying “starter” job disappear, we need to look to other avenues for young, first time employees to develop basic work skills. These basic work skills include learning to show up for a job on time, learning new skills, and following the direction of leaders, and supervisors. Some possible options to fill this gap exist in joining youth groups, taking on volunteer work, and taking advantage of local government lower paying jobs, and youth development programs. If we don’t fill these gaps, entry level professionals will need to learn basic work skills while in their first professional position, which may lead to a decline in professionalism across industries, and professions.
Author: Brian Kail, MBA, CPC is a professional Career, and Business Coach. For more information see AscendProCoach.com
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