Digitization and Artificial Intelligence is the future of the world feel of which has been globally accepted by people across all walks of life and it would surely be going to have a very prominent, strong and catalyst impact in employment sector too.
Our future of work is to be driven by the robotic interference in all aspect and sooner we accept the same the better.
Employment Law is the backbone of ensuring a congenial atmosphere in work place. It has, thus, necessitated a large scale of overhauling in all sections and provisions of employment laws in India which also recognizes the exponential growth in unorganized sectors specifically Platform and Gig works where it is estimated that in coming days, majority of the workforce will be choosing to Platform or Gig works as an alternative and the only option to survive.
It gives immense economic freedom to human beings, a perfect module to usher a desired work-life balance. A free choice to working hours and place of work, the home is the best place to work online. This is unlike the existing practice which soon will be obsolete and abolished.
Online Platform job is fast replacing the traditional office or factory based, a home away workplace and days are not far away, the industry will be facing an acute crisis of skilled work force to manage their daily show. Attracting of talent or skilled person will be a challenging and costly affairs.
People has already inclining to a job which has no retirement age and provide maximum flexibility.
Therefore, an all-out effort of HR Managers would be concentrated in retaining talent, enriching the existing job assignment to make it more lucrative than a platform or gig job and constant training & retraining for sharpening skills of existing workforce could be the only viable choice for organized employment market.
In India, four labour codes such as Code on Wages, Code on Industrial Relations, Code on Social Security and Code on Occupational Safety and Health has merged 29 Labour Acts and divided them under four codes.
Each such Codes has an essence of minimizing the plight of employers and the industry, an effort of the Government is noteworthy to emancipate employers from ‘a large volume of record maintenance & filing multiple returns as well as Inspector Raj’.
The dynasty of Inspector Raj is going to extinct upon these Codes once come in force which is also nearby. Single Return, single Registration and Single Licensing are on the card to replace multiple returns, registrations and licensing.
The Code on Social Security and the Code on OSH duly addresses long standing issues of migrant workers and plantation labour by putting them under Social Security and Safety net and this endeavor of the Government is highly laudable.
Gig Worker, Platform Worker, Unorganized Sector Worker – all have been brought under the Labour Laws coverage to provide them benefits enshrined under four codes.
Even the Contract Labour are to harness benefit of the Codes of OSH, where fixed term employment term would not have any specific tenure but would ensure contract labour is able to avail benefits at par with the permanent workers. Gratuity coverage has been extended to even Fixed Term Employment Contract where 5 years’ criteria is no more a preventing factor for eligibility.
Future of work – will be digitized fully, principal and all ancillary activities of an establishment – industrial or commercial – to be automated where AI will play the crucial role to manage the entire activities in any industrial sectors.
Autopilot mode will surely have an area of limitation in employment sector which is controlling, advising and managing the issues steaming out of employer-employee relationship in workplace which peculiarly industrial relation issues and it is driven by human feeling, human sentiment, emotion, reaction in a particular point of time on a particular or diverse issues which is connected to the security, demand and benefits of employees while on work.
Therefore, Employment and Labour Laws will continue to be alienated from the grip of AI, though documents & registers is a prevalent practice of generating mechanically and many such HR & Compliance operational issues may be driven through AI.
Therefore, it throws an open challenge to HR professionals at all level to knowledge them with Employment and Labour Laws which they remarkably lack and it is across all sector of industries and for which organization are forced to either retain an external Labour Law Experts or Firm or to on-roll a Legal & Compliance person in core employment to oversee labour law & other compliance affairs.
So, far to HR Professionals, they had a common perception of HR role as a head hunter, recruiter, trainer and pay roll manager and reluctance to indulge & involve themselves on industrial relations & labour law compliance matters.
However, the changing patter of industries, which has already shown good bye to many such position with the advent of technological upgradation, is steeping on another and probably the biggest steps on advancement – i.e.
Artificial Intelligence driven automated and autopilot management of whole of the affairs of the business shunning human intervention or intervention to a negligible extent, the role of HR is sure to witness a paradigm shift where the pace of adaptability is required to be faster than ever before.
On the other hand, expertise in Labour & Employment Laws is sure to give a cutting edge distinctive skills for a person to exist in upcoming trend of digitized environment, despite the fact that Employment Laws has been merged, condensed, consolidated, simplified, eased etc. etc.
In certain areas where human brain is non-replaceable by AI particularly in arena like deciding, drawing, applying, enforcing and implementing, otherwise judicial structure across the globe will be vanished some days, which is never possible.
So, it is an area of expertise which has perpetual succession and the professional in HR should embrace this massive transition from the traditional concept of HR practices to subsist in upcoming days.