When it comes to labour and productivity in Singapore, the next paradigm will undoubtedly be robotics, says Jeff Tang, chief technology officer at HOPE Technik.
Talking with
HRD, Tang said that robots will be brought into business because of their ability to perform tasks in complex, different environments. They will ultimately decrease costs, increase efficiency, reduce reliance on labour and offer faster service to customers.
“Laborious, labour-intensive tasks will see early adoption by hardware robots as a reply to the tight labour market,” Tang said. “At the same time, ’software robots’ will penetrate the market by thinking better and faster than humans can.”
This puts HR professionals in Singapore in a very unique position, especially with the tight labour market currently felt across the island.
To prepare for these trends, HR should take current workers with knowledge and years of experience and upskill them to succeed.
“With a little further training, they will be the masters of a fleet of robots and make that much more of an impact every day,” Tang said.
This does not mean that all staff will need a doctorate in computer engineering to control these robots, he added.
“Employees just need to know what the robots are supposed to be doing and then be able to assist when the robots need that little help.”
Tang says his firm has already started this move towards better productivity through robots.
One example is a driverless, automated guided vehicle for use in logistics hubs, industrial firms and hospitals which can reduce an organisation’s dependency on labour.
These robots join the ranks of automated vehicles such as the driverless cars tested by the National University of Singapore last year.
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