Technology Impact on Lives

Advanced technology has a profound impact on many aspects of our lives, especially in the workplace. This essay explains the effect of technology on skills in the workplace, focusing on re-skilling, further training and de-skilling.

As technology develops and time passes, the demand for workers who are multi-skilled has been increasing. Workers are required to adapt to new technology. (Herman, 2004; Roberts, 2004). With today’s ever-growing use of technology in the workplace, workers must change quickly enough to meet the challenges. It is the determining factor of standing still or going backwards. For example, today, classroom teachers will go on to teach students face to face. In addition, they also can choose to use new technology, such as web-cams or online videos (Sun, 2003 cited in Herman, 2004). These workers still require traditional skills, but they also need to update their skills to catch up with fast-changing technology.

In order to fit rising skill demands, workers should get high levels of technical knowledge. Herman (2004) also believes that it is necessary for workers to undergo further training and get higher education. If not, they will fall behind. Research has found that a lot of traditional equipment in factories are replaced by digital programmed machines and robots (Bang, 2002 quoted in Herman, 2004).Therefore, because some factory jobs do not depend on manual skills, workers need to get further training in new skills like computer programing.

However, advanced technology has the negative influence on the workplace. Some jobs require less professional skills than before (Herman, 2004; Roberts, 2004). And Roberts (2004) points out that experience and knowledge are no longer enough for promotion. For example, in the past, it was necessary for shopkeepers to be skilled in where the goods were in and how much they were, and also have some mathematical skills. Today, they just need to scan merchandise over a light and place it in a...