Service work and self-service models

Service Work and Self-Service

The research is aimed at determining how the self-service impacts on the forces of labor supply, demand and remuneration against labor. This is the face of what is fast becoming a trend in many organizations especially those that are centrally concerned with service to the clients and the potential clients. The main areas that such self-service trends are experienced according to Michael P. (n.d) are the call centers and the Auto Teller Machines (ATM). He emphasizes that the call self-service is widely used in India and many part of the world are currently studying the models in India so that they can implement the same back home. This therefore comes with the fear of having machines replace human not only in the labor intensive sectors as has already been, but in the service industry as well.

There are various modes of self-service that are identifiable across different organizations such as the answering machine with advanced options, the online interaction with the service machines, the goods dispensing machines along the streets, the ATMs, self booking services for traveling modes. The modes are numerous and what this means is that with the increase in the self-service, there is decrease of the manpower to provide the service consequently a lowered demand of the labor. This lowered intake of human labor and leaving the clients to serve themselves raises questions on the level of the quality of service and how the trends may go as the years progress.

The paper therefore seeks to analyze what this trend means to the quality of the services that are provided or rather the clients are left to provide to themselves. There are bound to be questions on the quality of the labor force that may remain to serve the clients as the last resort when clients get find it impossible to progress without human intervention.

According to Karen S. (n.d), there is a new challenge that the service industry is facing as concerns the work and the identity of the jobs that are supposedly created by the various service industries. This is because of the high substitution of the human service with the self-service that are provided by machines and software. This, according to Karen blurs the line between the organization and the people among whom it is established. There is a likelihood of the organization losing the social identity and touch with the people among whom it is established who, as a social culture, should be part of its identity. This is seen from that lacking human face of the organizations and all that people encounter are machines and software.

However, looking at the entire aspect with the postmodern theory perspective, there is always the temptation to believe that this is the right trend to follow. The post modern theory attempts to bring sense into the multifaceted and the highly dynamic business environment. According to Bryan C. (2004) postmodernism explains a series of breaks and continuations experienced within the contemporary community. It is based and argues for advancements, innovation, and adaptation to the contemporary dynamic goings on. This then means there are irreversible trends that the contemporary business environment tries to adapt to, this affect the service industry or sector as well hence the inevitable existence and continued expansion of self-service as portrayed by the theory.