The future of work: skills and knowledge perspective on service automation in the foodservice industry

Abstract

ABSTRACT Academia has requested more research on the ‘digitalization of the food environment’, which has been recently reviewed as an important but weakly covered research area. The paper probes service automation in the foodservice industry using intelligent self-service (ISS) technology. The main research question is how the skills and knowledge (S&K) requirements change with ISS. In the study, a framework was developed to provide a view of competencies in service management. A single case study with a mixed method focused on an ISS pilot at a lunch cafeteria, during which the S&K requirements were evaluated. Empirical data enabled analyzing the S&K needs before and after the technology implementation. Findings underline that ISS reminds typical platform orchestration, where the S&K requirements include e.g. digital marketing, data analytics, and lean operations. Hospitality workers have been reported to be weakly covered in hard skills and digital problem-solving, which sets a challenge to human resource management. Other studies have pointed out that the gig economy could solve resource challenges in digitizing industries. This is one of the first papers released on the human resource impact of ISS. It contributes to discussions on the foodservice industry as well as to the digital transformation of a business.