Ms. Awantika Bhardwaj, HR Head at Tieto, Pune, discussed how Automation is invading the HR space, and very soon everything that can be automated, will be automated. She justified her statement by giving examples of a restaurant in Nagoya, Japan where all systems are automated and chefs too are robots and a bank in Shanghai, China which is fully operated by robots.

Ms. Avantika shared both the sides of the coin by explaining that although automation will increase efficiency and reduce costs there will be an increasing need of managing emotions at workplace as robots will lack these skills

Responding to a query by a student ‘whether automation would eliminate workers’, Ms. Avantika stated that automation would change the nature of jobs and in fact create new ones such drone traffic controllers, human and technology integration specialists and human opportunity spotters. Hence, she advised students to strengthen their skills by taking specific courses in the area of their interests.