Humanoid Robots Take Over Offices and Factories

Employees recognize the advantages of having a robot colleague. While the areas of application in industry are already clear, robots as support in the office still raise questions.

Human-machine interactions are already widespread in local industry. In 2023, robot density in Germany was already 429 robots per 10,000 employees, as figures from the International Federation of Robotics (IFR) show. This secured Germany's leading role in Europe and fourth place worldwide in the field of robotics. However, since China has now overtaken Germany in terms of robot density in the manufacturing sector, there is increasing pressure not only on the federal government but also on companies to urgently upgrade their equipment.

Robots in Industry

According to a german study by Automatica Munich, the central trade fair for intelligent automation and robotics, which surveyed 1,000 employees each from Germany, Japan, China, the USA, and the UK, the workforce is also convinced of the opportunities offered by a robot colleague. According to the study, three-quarters of Germans believe that robots strengthen competitiveness and keep industrial production in their own country.

• Seventy-five percent also hope that robots could counteract the shortage of skilled workers.
• When it comes to specific areas of application for artificially intelligent colleagues, 85 percent believe that robots should take on dangerous tasks that carry a risk of injury. Employees are also happy to hand over dirty and boring tasks to their machine colleagues.
• Seventy percent even believe that robots in the workplace could help older people stay in their jobs longer.

Humanoid Robots on the Rise

“Robots are making rapid technological advances in terms of usability and will soon be as easy to use and set up as smartphones and other devices,” says Dr. Dietmar Ley, Chairman of the VDMA Robotics and Automation Association. Humanoid robots in particular, which are designed to be more approachable thanks to their human stature, will challenge companies and teams in the future as they become increasingly common in offices.

This scenario has been tested in practice in a study conducted by the Department of Management at the University of Trier under the direction of Jonas Ossadnik and Katrin Muehlfeld: For six weeks, “Pepper,” the humanoid robot of the Business Administration Department at the University of Trier, was sent to several locations of a company to test the attitude and mindset of the workforce. According to Ossadnik and Muehlfeld, if teams are hostile to technology, the potential of a robot will not be fully exploited.

Appearance and Competence Score Points

Subsequent surveys and comparisons with employees at other locations who had no contact with the robot revealed that interaction with the robot led to better results in the areas of “overall evaluation,” “acceptance in the workplace,” and “assessment of visual human similarity.” Pepper was even overrated in the latter category in particular. Reasons for this included its friendly appearance, which was perceived as “cute” with its large eyes, and its ability to communicate verbally.

Overall, the robot put people in a good mood and was also able to reduce perceived stress. “The employees also recognized that Pepper was not there to replace them, but to support them,” says Ossadnik. Direct interaction also reduced general uncertainty about the robot colleague. However, when Pepper did not function well, this was also critically noted. The implementation of a robot in the office therefore requires sufficient time to build trust.

This is a partly automated translation of this german article.