When my wife and I were at the airport recently we stumbled upon a new cafe/restaurant area. It was unlike any other restaurant I’ve seen. They had iPads at every single table. It cost no money to use them, but I quickly discovered why they were trying this setup: you can order food and drinks right from the iPad and a waiter or waitress would bring you your order when it’s available. I suppose it’s not that shocking that businesses are now experimenting with ordering straight from tablets, as they are always looking to cut costs in one way or another.
Investing in people or…technology?
In a recent Wall Street Journal article, they talked about a bakery that was considering switching to ordering from a tablet instead of paying for her minimum-wage customer service employees:
Carla Hesseltine is considering buying a few tablet devices for her bakery so customers can place orders for her signature M&M cupcakes on their own, straight from the counter.
The reason: She fears the $7.25 an hour that she currently pays her 10 customer-service employees, mostly college students, could rise, perhaps to $9 an hour under a pledge by President Barack Obama earlier this month.
In order for her Just Cupcakes LLC to remain profitable in the face of higher expected labor costs, Ms. Hesseltine believes the customer-ordering process “would have to be more automated” at the Virginia Beach, Va., chain, which has two strip-mall locations as well as a food van. Thus, she could eliminate the 10 workers who currently ask customers what they would like to eat.
While I certainly agree that everyone should be able to make a living wage, one of the unintended consequences of raising the minimum wage is that it encourages investment in technology and automation to replace workers who fill minimum wage jobs. We’ve seen this happen in supermarkets where there are now self check-outs that can be manned by one employee instead of four.
While raising the minimum wage may speed up the investment in technology that can replace low-wage workers, this investment would happen whether the minimum wage is raised or not. The main point is that there are opportunities to utilize technology in ways that previously weren’t possible, and that’s going to change the skills that will be in demand in the work force.
What automation will we see in the future…and how will the job market change?
There are certainly challenges in implementing any new technology, especially if the goal is to replace human workers. Imagine trying to implement a tablet ordering system. It would require large up-front investment. Additionally, it would also depend on customer’s understanding the software – and accepting it.
It would be hard to deny the fact that there has been some success in the implementation of automation, especially in the restaurant industry. For example, there has been a big push for online ordering from pizza companies. Giving deals that are “online only” has pushed for people to create accounts and go through the ordering process.
While I’m not sure that all driving will be automated in our lifetime, I’m sure that you’ve heard about Google’s self-driving cars. Further, Google is testing out same-day delivery of groceries and other products. Technology will change the labor force that is required, and will push more towards automation and create more demand for jobs that can help coordinate this automation.
I don’t know about you, but I’m personally excited for this sort of investment. Long-term, it makes the economy more efficient and makes things more affordable for everyone.
How do you think technology will change the way we live and work over the next few decades? What jobs do you think won’t exist in the future because of technological advancement?
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At the funeral home where I work, people actually browse caskets and headstones on our ipads. It’s crazy. It’s fine when it works but a pain in the a$$ when it isn’t working properly.
@Holly at ClubThrifty Yeah the big negative is troubleshooting those things. That’s really impressive that you guys are that technology-forward. For some reason I would expect the opposite out of funeral homes.
I’ve not seen the iPad ordering yet, but I think it’s a brilliant idea. In terms of where it’s going, who knows? We’re growing and seeing new things develop at such a fast pace that more and more will become automated. It’s definitely an interesting time to be living in.
@FrugalRules Very true, stuff is advancing at such a fast pace it’s nearly impossible for people to keep up with it! It’s crazy to think some technologies that we can’t even picture right now will be widespread in 10-20 years.
I have seen tablet ordering before and I think it is sweet. It depends on the restaurant, but it is cool. I have also been to many bars that have beer tables which you order from the waitress the food, but the beer comes from the table and you just pay for how much you drink. That is sweet!
@DebtRoundUp Wow have not seen these at bars yet, but it sounds pretty awesome!
@DC @ Young Adult Money Awesome indeed. It is a great way to keep the party going without worrying about not having a beer.
I have no idea but it’s crazy to think about how thing are going to be 10 years from now. Technology blows my mind sometimes!
@Beachbudget Yeah it’s hard to believe there are things we can’t even imagine yet that will be commonplace in 10-15 years. Technology is awesome.
I’ve never seen this before. Very interesting! It makes me wonder what things will be like in 10 or 15 years.
@SenseofCents Yeah I don’t think we can even begin to imagine what it will be like 10-15 years…you never know when some new breakthrough technology will hit the market and change the way we live/work.
I haven’t run into restaurants using iPads for ordering before, but that is a good idea! I can see technology really changing our educational landscape. Even towards the end of my college time it was already starting to happen. Students use iPads to access their books and teachers record their lectures as podcasts. I took about 40% of my classes online during college. I’m sure these things are only the tip of the iceberg in educational changes.
@ayoungpro
Very cool to hear about some of the changes in the education field. I’m excited to see where it goes, and it makes me woner if physical textbooks will go away? You can always print off sections of the book you need and write notes/highlight on there if you need to. That’s what I do at work for the most part.
it will definitely be exciting to see how things change.
@DC @ Young Adult Money To be honest, I only purchased 1 or 2 physical textbooks during my last 3 semesters in school. Having an e-book actually makes studying much easier because of the built in search functionality!
@ayoungpro Ah I see, very cool.
I like automation because you can’t get angry at the machine, I have spent nights with people bitching at the waitress the whole night for being slow, etc. In France we have this at McD when you come in you order from a screen, pay and have a special counter to get your order, usually quicker than the staffed counter.
@RFIndependence That’s awesome to hear about the advancement in France. I would actually much prefer to order from a screen. In the case of McDonalds, I have heard the least favorite thing for workers is manning the front desk and cash machine. It would definitely stop people from getting pissed at the employee and more so at the software, which is preferable in my opinion ;)
This reminds me of back when the Big 3 automotive plants added robots to do jobs on the manufacturing line that were previously done by people, which of course quickly eliminated their nice paying jobs.
I think that using an automated ordering system will work in some restaurantsdiners, but my thought is that it will depend on the type of clientele they are serving. For example, if my 84 year old father went in to buy some cupcakes and the only way to order them was via an iPad he would most likely leave.
@TacklingOurDebt It certainly depends on the clientele! There’s a fine line between adapting to change and accomodating your customers. If your customers are primarily 50+, you probably don’t want to drastically change the ordering system.
If there were no more servers taking orders at restaurants:
– On the bright side, you’d be done with annoying server chit chat and small talk.
– On the other hand, I like asking servers to recommend food.
As to the political/economic issues involved, that’s a whole can of worms, isn’t it? All I can say is if you want to be able to earn a living, you’d better learn how to do work that couldn’t easily be replace by an iPad.
@YNAB_Mark I would say the more technology advances, the more work that previously couldn’t be outsourced, will be. If a software engineer can replace 20 waiters and waitresses, some of that work will be outsourced overseas (coding, monitoring, etc.) for less. It’s going to be interesting to see how things change.
I can’t wait for the day when I never have to talk to anyone, ever about anything. That’ll be uber-lonely, but I won’t have to deal with all those pesky people. Ugh….
@AverageJoeMoney Haha I hear you, but I think there will always be a market for a human to take your order, you just will have to pay more for that luxury.
That is interesting that Google is getting into the Grocery delivery business. That was popular in Phoenix about 5 years ago, but died off. I will be interested to see the results.
@deaconhayes Yeah there was a company called Simon Delivers that went bankrupt here in Minnesota (might have been more widespread). Another company here still does it, but I think people would be more likely to give Google a try than other businesses, mainly because Google is known for being innovative (even if it’s just an old idea rebirthed by Google!)