Job Automation, Employee Turnover and Organizational Performance: A Study of Deposit Money Banks (DMBs) in Anambra State (original) (raw)

The 21st century has witnessed tremendous developments with breakthrough technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), data science, etc. enabling advanced applications such as robotics, virtual assistants, etc. (Vermeulen, Kesselhut, Pyka, & Saviotti, 2018). These developments led to several aspects of traditional tasks performed by humans to be replaced by machines, thus, gradually the automation of several human related tasks. According to Makridakis (2017) the revolution in AI was directed to "substitute, supplement and amplify practically all tasks currently performed by humans, becoming in effect, for the first time, a serious competitor to them". Automation mainly affected routinized work in stationary, predictable environments (Ford, 2015; Wolfgang, 2016); particularly, where tasks mainly concern executing rules rather using cognitive processes (Levy & Murnane, 2007). Automation involves a broad range of technologies including robotics and expert systems, telemetry and communications, electro-optics, sensors, wireless applications, systems integration, and The study explores the interrelationship between job automation, employee turnover and organizational performance of Deposit Money Banks in Anambra State, Nigeria. The study adopted the descriptive survey research design. The population comprised of eighty (80) senior staff in eight (8) Deposit Money Banks (DMBs) in Anambra state. The study utilized the complete enumeration method; because the total identifiable respondents were less a hundred. Simple random sampling technique was used to select the respondents for the study. The study focused on primary data collected using a structured questionnaire. The questionnaire was pilot tested on a sample of 20 respondents from four DMBs. The reliability of the instrument was tested using Cronbach Alpha. The data were analyzed using Pearson Correlation, simple linear regression technique, and SEM. The results showed a significant positive relationship between job automation and employee dismissal; secondly, a significant positive relationship between job automation and customer satisfaction; and, lastly, employee dismissal mediates the relationship between job automation and customer satisfaction. Based on this, the study recommends that managers of contemporary organizations embrace technological adoption as a strategic response to competitive forces in the business environment. In this regard, managers are advised to adopt a complementary perspective during automation of business processes.