In October, U.S. employers posted 11 million job openings. Job openings have exceeded 10 million for five consecutive months already. Meanwhile, there were only 7.4 million unemployed Americans in October, equivalent to 1.5 available jobs for every unemployed person.
The leisure and hospitality sector alone added additional 251,000 openings. Vacant positions in leisure and hospitality have reached 1.8 million. Then, what can hospitality businesses do to deal with the labor shortage issue?
Companies found solutions through automatic services
Hotels, restaurants, and foodservice businesses are redesigning jobs with more automatic service components. Hotels want customers to skip the Front Desk. Guests can use mobile apps to do almost everything for a hotel stay, from making/updating a reservation, checking in, opening the guestroom, making service requests, to checking out.
Restaurants and foodservice businesses went steps further. Some have introduced new store designs to embrace the robotic service. Forget about self-ordering apps or kiosks. More restaurants are now using burger-flipping robots, delivery robots, and robotic fry or stir-fry stations.
Technology also allows more foodservice workers to work remotely. Employees at an Arizona Chick-fil-A Restaurant can take drive-thru orders while they are sitting at home (Matyszczyk, 2021). Imagine the AI-empowered automatic service becoming mature. Will restaurants still need a real human to take customer orders? Furthermore, can we expect more AI-empowered avatars and robots to do more jobs for human beings?
Workers must get ready to work with robots
The robotic trend in service operations will continue, meaning robots will take over more service jobs that are still performed by real humans today. Human-robot interactions will become an essential part of the future servicescape and workplace.
What do you expect about automation in the future workforce?
Joshlind Hege HRT 3500 Section 1
ReplyDeleteWhile I agree that robots will play an increasingly important role in the future of the service sector, I do not believe that the future of service will be entirely automated. I know that incorporating robots has several benefits, such as increased productivity, and the elimination of tedious repetitive tasks. However, I believe the service sector will still need to determine the optimal balance of productivity and high-touch service, which robots cannot provide. In addition to the complex situations that only a human can solve. I’m predicting that future customers would prefer human interaction to that of a robot when it comes to service or customer support issues.
Adrian Laksmono HRT 3500 Section 2
ReplyDeleteRobots will play an essential role in the near future, especially in the service sector. Currently, front desks have check-in/check-out kiosks to expedite the process. The service sector, even restaurants, will need humans to deal with unexpected situations. While a real human is not required to take orders, there needs to be someone there to deal with complaints. Therefore, the service industry will not be completely automated. Robots would not be able to provide tailored service and make lasting impressions as it would be hard for them to be personable in a time of guests' need. Especially if everywhere they go is an automated service, they might want to see a person to help them.
I believe robots will play a huge part in the service field in the future. Technology will continue to advance and develop. As they improve, businesses will incorporate more automation and robots in the workforces as they can be more modern and efficient. As of now, there are still many job position that requires a real human being to operate; however, that may not be the case in the future. As more automated robots are used, there will be less job openings for people, which can be an issue in the future. Therefore, I feel that the service sector will not completely be taken over by robots and automated technology.
ReplyDeleteElissa Konishi HRT 3500 Section #1
The pandemic has really highlighted and accelerated the growth of AI and robots in the industry. Services like Uber Eats and Postmates have popularized takeout out the necessity but has now become the norm. With this growing trend, more service like receptionists will be replaced by kiosks or apps to make it more efficient on the business and guest. In turn, this just creates new job opportunities like managing and serving said programs and robots. Because of that, I think there will still be a need to people to be there to handle more complicated situations and to give that human touch you cant get from robots.
ReplyDeleteI believe robots/AI’s will be part of the future of the food industry, but they won’t take over it completely. If we had robots helping us humans out when someone calls out sick or are short staff at work, it would be incredible to have a robot/AI’s to help us out as if nothing ever happened and restaurant can proceed with their day. The way our society is moving I expect us to move towards having robots/AI’s in the food industry making our food efficiently, uniform, and quicker. But humans are use to human interaction and if robot/ AI’s were to become more involved in the restaurant community it might make customers feel as if customer service is now cold and abnormal.
ReplyDeleteA major benefit from having robots/AI utilized in consistency. A company can use a program that is guaranteed to deliver quality service without the need to hire or train anyone that may or may not perform as the company expects. This transition could also create new jobs for software engineers and technicians. The major downside of this is eliminating most entry level positions that don’t require an extensive amount of education. These people that do not have access to higher education are limited even further with what jobs they can apply for. We can only rely on technology to a certain degree before we need human assistance. That human assistance needs to have the education that not every person can or wants to pursue.
ReplyDeleteAs humans advance and grow in number organization and other important tasks become automated. Our ACT, SAT, and AP tests were all graded by a robot. Our cars are robots now. It is hard to believe that robots won't take over much of our workforce in the future. The need for robots will create an increase in technical jobs needed to produce them and provide their maintenance. But this can also create a job loss where entry level positions are. Robots look good for many reasons. Robots lack human error. They are consistent. They don't even need training, This all sounds great but there are certain tasks that robots cannot achieve. While they can certainly distinguish if an applicant looks good on paper, it is a human that can only tell if that applicant is personality-wise fit for a job.
ReplyDeleteDue to the increase of technology available, I think that robots and Artificial intelligence will start to take over the hospitality industry. Doing an evaluation of the technology we have available to us today; I can clearly see how robots will ultimately become a more involved factor of our lives. As of now, many hospitality jobs do require human employees, but this may change very soon as more places, as said in this post, are adding robots and AI to the workplace. On the contrary, I also think that some jobs, like in hotel industry, will have always have human interaction to provide that true sense of hospitality to guests. Therefore, I think that robots and AI will be introduced, but will not take over the industry.
ReplyDeleteAs technology advances, so do trends. The hospitality industry is one area that requires staying on top of the latest trends in order to maintain good business and overall stay successful. I believe that automation in the future workplace will most likely be implemented in several hospitality industries as many businesses strive to stay afloat amid the covid-19 pandemic. I have already seen a few fast food chains that have started using voice recognition technology that allows guests to speak to a screen to take their orders. Although these so-called 'robots' are off to a slow start on being introduced into restaurants and other hospitality operations, I think that they will play a major role in serving guests in the very near future.
ReplyDeleteYingjie Yuan HRT 3500 Section 2
ReplyDeleteRobots may be more widely used, but the conditions for reaching them are not primarily composed of robots. I see that there are still middle-scale hotels that use magnetic cards instead of proximity cards, and one Japanese investment blogger tells of his use of a large number of IOT devices like smart locks and floor sweepers to reduce labor costs, provided he happens to have an epidemic that brings in housing transactions, which would otherwise be impossible in Japan where it is difficult to fire employees.
Price and incremental updates to the devices will allow for more but slow applications of robots, such as electronic check-ins that still require queuing in the same line as walk-in guests is a scenario of poor service. Some quality service about additional needs are usually only fully handled or show failure without annoying by human, and robotic apologies are noise to some people.
It will take a long time to complete this renewal, to improve both service and efficiency, with robots or real people serving as mere bearers that have different feature.