Digital language of labor-management relations

SEOUL – Right down the Gwanghwamun Plaza is the 9.5-meter statue of King Sejong, the 15th-century Korean monarch. It’s easy to discover this popular landmark as my reference in locating my hotel accommodation. After alighting from an airport limousine bus from Incheon Airport, I alighted at a bus stop in front of a hotel at around 9:30 in the evening.

It was not my hotel. My accommodation is about a 10-minute walk from the bus stop. I know where to go but was intrigued to know the difference between Japanese and Korean customer service even if the biting, cold weather was a challenge. I went inside the hotel to take a leak then asked a Lee Min-ho look-alike at the reception desk. He was friendly despite the fact I was asking for the location of a competing hotel which is about a 10-minute walk.

“The area is between a building where the US embassy is located,” he emphasized with a smile. Why emphasize the location of the embassy when the glorious statue of King Sejong can be easily discovered from all angles? South Korea and the US have a strong economic and military alliance.

I know what you’re thinking. If I got a detailed map, why bother to ask for directions when I already know the answer? By the way, I’m here in Seoul honoring the invitation of the Tokyo-based Asian Productivity Organization and the Korea Productivity Center to talk about how digital technology can help improve labor-management relations with the majority of middle-aged management professionals from 17 Asian countries.

Why learn from an old dog teaching a new trick? You’ll be surprised.

Digital tools

I’ve been using digital tools (DTs) since close to 20 years ago when I taught management subjects to college students. I know how they tickle the minds of people, young and old alike. In my presentations, I used DTs that are woven in my presentations to help people maintain their focus.

It was the 2015 Microsoft study that confirmed what we knew all along. Our average attention span dropped from 12 seconds to eight seconds, shorter than the notoriously ill-focused goldfish at nine seconds. The reason is our incurable addiction to the internet and social media.

If DTs are the problem, then DTs can be the solution. That’s how I used them to help people adjust and refocus their minds during my learning sessions using a combination of role-playing activities, fun mind games, and short videos.

So, what DTs can we use to improve the relationship between labor and management? It starts from the basic framework of human resources (HR) guru Dave Ulrich who recommends that professionals must wear four hats, namely as an administrative expert, business partner, change agent and employee champion alongside the suggested DTs:

Effective two-way communication process. This includes using Zoom for town hall meetings with the chief executive officer or top senior executives, SurveyMonkey for conducting employee morale surveys, Slack for one-on-one engagement dialogue and Google Meet for quality circles.

Performance management. Remote work is here to stay with or without COVID-19. So, how does management monitor the performance of their workers who are not physically in the office? There are many time-tracking devices and performance-monitoring systems that are available, including Monday.com.

Work-life balance. How do organizations ensure that their workers are productive and loyal? One solution is flexible work hours so people can reconcile their family responsibilities, like bringing their kids to and back from school. DTs may not be needed as long as the workers are physically present during the core work time.

Labor productivity. How would you define the invisible waste, inefficiency, or inconsistency in business operations? The answer is OTRS, a video-based software that helps define the issues through an objective time and motion analysis. With OTRS, you can identify the issues and solve them with the help of people.

Training and development. Endless learning is necessary. You can learn many things through Coursera and Udemy with more than 10,000 courses that are constantly reviewed by reputable universities like Harvard and MIT and coached by their professors. More importantly, many courses are offered free of charge.

Self-service employee programs. An excellent example comes from Globe Telecom, a 5G partner of SK Telecom in South Korea. Globe’s employees can instantly secure a copy of their certificate of employment (CoE), among other documents using a company-developed software program. In the Philippines, CoE is a major irritant between labor and management.

Collective bargaining. For organizations with employee unions, collective bargaining is part and parcel of their right to self-organization. DTs can help the parties resolve their issues using objective “big data” from government agencies and industry compensation surveys.

Labor-management cooperation. Collective bargaining is not a one-time activity. LMC or similar platforms are recommended to be done casually every day and formally once a month to cultivate positive relationships and maintain mutual trust.

Time and physical boundaries are no longer issues if they use DT tools like Zoom, MS Teams or related online platforms.

This is not an endorsement of the above-cited DTs. Caveat emptor. More importantly, we must realize that there’s no substitute for a face-to-face communication set-up.

As the Filipino tycoon Manuel Pangilinan said in so many words: Don’t be afraid of AI per se. Instead, be afraid of people with extraordinary skills in AI. Better if you become afraid of people who don’t understand the beauty of the human touch.

Rey Elbo is a quality and productivity improvement enthusiast. Consult him for free on Facebook, LinkedIn, X, or email [email protected] or via https://reyelbo.com