A structured framework for identifying risks sources related to human resources in a 4.0 working environment perspective

2.1 Globalization 4.0

Globalization, beyond being an extremely popular concept, it designates maybe the most implacable trend of the human civilization. As concept, it is covered by many definitions that highlight its multiple valences. Some, e.g. [3, 4], are pointing out especially the processes (incorporation, integration, interdependence, sharing, movement) or the actors (states, companies, people), its main dimensions (economic, cultural, political, environmental), others, e.g. [5, 6], are pointing its objects more or less material (market, products, technology, information, capital, jobs) or immaterial ones (values, principles, legal rules), or focusing on actions (trade, transportation, free movement of people, outsourcing - offshoring) and impacts (on economic development, people wellness and wellbeing or poverty, environment health or pollution, states independence or the power of multinational companies). There are also attempts to provide a comprehensive, holistic approach to this concept by assembling information from various sources [7].

When globalization is currently mentioned, it refers generally to the modern, large-scale phenomenon that begun in the 19th century but, as process, its roots could be placed in the early history of humanity, when exchange of goods became trade, extending over countries borders. The “silk road” even if it is not the oldest, could be a significant example in this sense, being updated recently as support for a modern but similar approach. During its history, the content and characteristics of the globalization process have evolved significantly. As in the case of industrialization process, globalization phases have been baptized with similar indexes. [8] places the globalization 1.0 phase from the end of 15th to the beginning of 20th century; this last century hosting the globalization 2.0, while in 2007, globalization 3.0 was considered the current phase starting from 2000. Even if some of the Friedman’s ideas were criticized by prestigious authors (e.g. Stiglitz), its globalization phases were largely accepted and, when recently a new approach was considered necessary, Globalization 4.0 has been a natural adopted name.

Globalization 4.0, adopted as flagship for the 2019 World Economic Forum in Davos, is not a newborn concept, being mentioned in publication some years ago, e.g. [9], yet its deployment as content and characteristics is relatively new and even nowadays, it is far from being a mature one. Digitalization, large scale automation & artificial intelligence, cloud computing, IoT, Internet 4.0, big data & cybersecurity are just some of these current, mainly technological, challenges that, together with the continuous raising of competition for markets and resources and the global climate change as an effect of unsustainable development, are impacting on all dimensions and levels of the economic, political and social life. In order to face the new wave of globalization each region and country [10], as well as companies and organizations, have to assume their convergence with the global vision and requirements, including in updating their professional and educational systems, regulations, and infrastructure.

2.2 The international business environment

In today’s business environment the real competitiveness has an international reference, only adaptable companies that manage to be competitive globally can aspire to keep their long-time sustainability. For such companies, the immersion in the international business environment is inevitable and its rapidly shifting conditions in the marketplace, is forcing management to constantly review and adapt its core competencies. Here, companies are confronted with a higher level of complexity and disruptions brought by the new waves of globalization and the irresistible technological changes. The tendency to offshore a part of the production and service activities and processes can lead companies to transform themselves into virtual organizations, where all the main functions could be outsourced, leading to the formation of flexible networks and agile organizational structures. Offshoring has become and probable will remain one of the most widely used strategies by companies in developed countries to maintain or increase their competitive advantage [11].

International business is equally of interest for companies and nations, researches in the field showing a major interest at a global level, not only in the business environment, but also in the political field [12, 13]. Global political leaders are reflecting intensively on offshoring benefits and risks [14]. In this moment, besides the effects of COVID-19 crisis, in the economic developed world, there emerged high concerns regarding job losses due to the massive transfer of activities to other locations like China [15]. Both global leaders and top management of large companies are concerned with making the right decisions and initiating actions related to the outsourcing strategy aimed at accessing skilled labor at low cost and shortening transport routes from suppliers to their clients. To maintain these benefits in the changing contextual conditions, managing risks in a right way is becoming a key issue for success. The importance of risk management is even greater when we consider the risks in the continuously growing supply chains [16], with a significant impact on the income, quality, and delivery deadlines, as well as those coming from the cross-cultural influence on the behavior of the human resource.

Management plays a primordial role for any business; its decision influences even the survival of the company, poor managerial approaches can be deadly for the business itself. The business unit managers are usually focused on complying with targets, reducing financial risks, and fulfilling the standard requirements. In the present international business environment, dominated by complexity and dynamism, managers must focus rather on flexibility and capacity to understand and adapt to the continuous change on the technological, human resources, supply chains, political and social dimensions. Such businesses emphasize the importance of contextually understanding the change processes and to have the capability to provide adequate answers. This includes having a clear image about the risks assumed doing business in a certain domain, time, and place.

2.3 Work 4.0 and HR 4.0

The world of work is changing globally under the pressure of megatrends such as technological progress, mainly digitalization, artificial intelligence and automation/robotization, that together with the increasing integration (already mentioned under the generic of Globalization 4.0) are assembled sometimes generically under the name of “globotics”, to which we may add population aging and a change of generations. In this context are emerging new jobs, new ways, and new tools of working that are demanding new skills, new ways of thinking, leading and communicating, which impose, in turn, new requirements toward education and training, as well as to human resource employment and management [17–19]. A new generation, the “generation y” or “millennials”, born between 1981 and 1996, with a new pattern of life and behavior, will deliver the majority of the global workforce during the next decade (many sources indicate 75% in 2025).

All these together determine a new vision to work, called by some in the technical language of the moment “Work 4.0” and which will have to be accomplished by employees with specific characteristics, called in the same language as “Human Resources (HR) 4.0”. It is a situation that raises challenges, offers opportunities, but also brings important risks to all stakeholders dealing with legislating work, educating people, as well as for the employers [17].

Two very recent documents one issued by The International Labor Organization (ILO) through the Global Commission on the Future of Work founded in 2017 [20], and the other by the World Economic Forum (2) considers as necessary a new “human-centered” approach to work, supposing from both governments and business organizations to invest in: people’s capabilities, enabling their skilling, reskilling and upskilling; adequate legislation and regulations on work and employment; specialized institutions to ensure professional guidance and supervision in this issue.

On the other side, [2] submits to attention some imperatives for business leaders to implement the right HR strategy: Development of new leadership capabilities and enhancing employee experience for the 4th Industrial revolution; Integration of Technology in the Workplace; Building an agile and personalized culture, Establishing metrics for valuing human capital and Embedding diversity and inclusion. These actions and strategies suggested as necessary to be undertaken by governments and business organizations are synthesized in Fig. 1.

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Fig. 1

A human centered approach to future of work.

4.1 Trends of 4.0 development stage and globalization

The concept “Industry 4.0”, was firstly launched within a German Government High-Tech Strategy 2020 Action Plan [21]. It is aimed mainly as a platform to promote the increasing of digitalization within products, production, value chains, and business models. The Industry 4.0 as concept designates a 4th Industrial revolution and usually includes in its understanding technology issues such as cyber-physical systems (CPS), the Internet of Things (IoT), Internet of Things and Services (IoTS), Industrial Big Data and others. The term has grown and spread as a worldwide use, with the 4.0 index beginning to be perceived as characteristic for the present stage of world development.

Starting from the “Industry 4.0” concept, similar expressions have emerged: “Innovation 4.0” [22, 23]; “Society 5.0” [24, 25], “Logistics and supply chain 4.0” [26], “Education 4.0” [27], “Human resources 4.0” [1] and “Work 4.0” [18] and others similar. In today’s highly interconnected and interdependent world, the 4.0 index describes a specific stage in the technological, economic and social evolution of human civilization whose processes described by the 4.0 concepts cannot exist independently, each inherently being connected to and inheriting from the others their dimensions, characteristics, and trends. Therefore, if we analyze the specific trends of Industry 4.0, Globalization 4.0, or Labor 4.0 and Human Resources 4.0 we will find a high degree of overlap and convergence.

Table 1 proposes a perspective on the main trends of the 4.0 development stage, aiming to identify their impact on organizations operating in the context, in particular on their human resources. The analysis is intended to facilitate the subsequent identification of the main risk categories regarding the human resources that companies will face by operating under such conditions. The table summarizes information from several relevant sources, including: [18, 28–31].

In the Table 1 are highlighted those aspects of the impact of the 4.0 stage trends that affect human resources favoring the emergence of risks in this field and focused by the present research.

A critical research of the literature and of the relevant information on the web has delivered the basis in creating the following structure of the domains of risks expected when doing business in international environments. In the followings just some of the consulted references, considered as having a higher relevance, are mentioned: [32–40].

Benefiting from their previous experience and the opportunity of current activity in the international business environment, using the consultation of collaborators with experience in this field, the authors undertook a thorough analysis of the risk domains and sources here recorded, to identify those that are relevant to human resources. The results of the mentioned analyzes are summarized in Table 2, providing a basis for the next steps of the research.

Although in organizations human resource management is not exactly at the center of the concerns of those involved in risk management, it must be counted as an important source of risk for companies. In the present phase, the authors undertook an extensive search of existing references in the literature and on the web on the risks related to human resources. Their number and consistency confirm the importance and attention that this subject enjoys, both in the field of knowledge and as well as in the world of specialists. The research phase has targeted to collect the main involved constructs when approaching human resources related risks in companies and to define a comprehensive structure in which these constructs fit in and that can be used for future risk identifications in a certain context (the “4.0 stage of development and globalization” and “Digitalization” being contexts particularly targeted in the present paper).

An large number of information sources have been reviewed for the collection and critical analysis of the mentioned constructs, from books containing extensive analyzes on HRM such as: [41–49], papers that treat holistically or on a specific segment the problem of risks related to HR such as: [50–54], and documents from various sites providing information such as “the most important risks regarding HR” some being mentioned here: [55–59], whose consistency has been verified by a confrontation between each other and critically filtered by the authors.

The list of structures thus collected which, after a filtration focused on relevance and redundancies elimination, was including over 50 such constructs, was initially grouped on two levels, first containing dimensions/aspects of HRM sensitive to risk and second referring to company actions in relation to human resources where hazards emergence have to be taken into account. The structure provided for each of the two levels covers and includes all the identified constructions and can constitute a logical framework for identifying and processing the risks regarding the human resource in the company (see Fig. 3).

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Fig. 3

Working dimensions and main company actions regarding human resources sensible to risks.

Based on the analysis of the information in Tables 1 and 2 relevant to HRM 3 several directions have been identified, on which the trends associated with globalization and the 4.0 phase of economic development could have a relevant impact on the human resource in companies and host areas of emerging risks. These are: Technological, especially digitalization and digital automation, Legislative and governmental measures (their adequacy to the development phase in question), and the Working cultural pattern referring to the employees’ answer to cultural differences (between nationalities or generations) when working in new environments and working models and/or with new working tools.

These mentioned directions were correlated in a matrix with the 4 dimensions sensible to risks regarding human resources identified in 4.3 and Fig. 3. For identifying the risks domains at their intersection, an extended analysis of information available on the literature and the web has been undertaken, here being mentioned only those considered most relevant: [17, 60–65]. Results have been submitted for discussion between the authors, each having the possibility to ask for feedback from a number of peers, who themselves accumulated experience and knowledge in the field of international business. The results are recorded in Table 3 in a matrix form. This matrix represents the first level of the structure of human resources related domains, where companies operating in the studied context (International business environment in the 4.0 development stage) can search and identify the risks they may face.

In the next phase, the present research has focused on sources where risks could arise in connection with human resources when a company passes through a digital transformation in its activities. In this context working models such as working in the office, remote working, working from home, together with their contextual characteristics have been taken into consideration. Starting from the idea that risks are events that can obstruct the achievement of certain objectives, in the case of working in the mentioned digital context, the analysis considered as reference two categories of objectives:

those emerged from work performance (quality and productivity) as well as employees’ work discipline, that lead to a direct business advantage of the company. These are targeted mainly by adequate measures on employees’ recruitment, selection and training, organization/management, and motivation assembled under the generic of work and human resources management processes.

The results of the above mentioned analysis is synthesized in the Table 4, representing a framework where, as in a previous section, are not pointed out the risks themselves but the processes and actions where these could arise, so each company can identify its specific risks. These risks sources are placed in the logical order of human resources management interventions identified in Fig. 3.