By | Anand Bhaskar | Jt. President & CHRO | Adani Airports
It is wonderful to see the debate in the industry shift from will technology replace humans to how can we humanize technology. The big shift is happening because technology has won the battle of being accepted as a necessity. It has however not yet won the battle of “humanization” in its interface and experience.
Before we explore the human aspect of technology, it might be helpful to understand the technology journey we have been on over the last 2 decades. In the first decade, technology was introduced into HR and many other fields to deliver productivity. The use case for Technology was often, how it will enhance productivity, performance, efficiency, accuracy etc. Over the second decade, technology was evangelized into HR and other fields to deliver intelligence. The use case now was, how technology can drive insights, enhance decision making, improve effectiveness of people etc. Now, in this third decade technology is all about experience. But, why experience?
Research has shown that people spend close to 80-90% of their waking time interacting with some kind of technology. This could be anything such as their phone, an Alexa gadget, their smart watch, laptop, TV etc. The natural orientation of a human being is to connect with voice, words, thoughts & feelings of fellow humans around him/her. When one is engaged with a device/software, a lot of these are missing and that does not naturally endear a human mind/heart to the device. However, if the device can be programmed to connect with a human being like another human being using voice, words, thoughts & feelings; it is far more likely for people to engage with the device/software. What Alexa or Siri have done to the world is exactly this. Hence, the underlying method to get higher acceptance, adoption, and engagement of technology with the human mind is by making technology humane. This is exactly where the world is now headed.
