A survey about the consequences of automation in the Norwegian Armed Forces

In this report we describe a survey we have conducted in the activity “Automatisering i fremtidens arbeidsliv”, which is a part of the FFI project “Personellstudier”. The Royal Norwegian Navy, the Norwegian Cyber Defence, and the Norwegian Armed Forces HR and Conscription Centre participated in the survey. The goal of the survey was to collect data that would provide us with more answers to the three research questions in our activity: what will be important skills in the Norwegian Armed Forces 15 years from now as a result of digitalization and automation, what is the status of such skills is in the organization today, and will the organization will be able to update the skills of its personnel according to the technological development? Future automation is thoroughly studied in the literature, but studies are rarely directed specifically towards military organizations. A main goal for us is to investigate whether existing research within this field can be applied to the Norwegian Armed Forces. Our respondents believe that technology will be useful and important in the future, but there are fewer actual plans of acquiring digitalization and automation technologies within operative parts of the organization. Operative employees seem to experience less direct impact by digitalization and automation. Among the civilian employees, as much as 80 percent will probably experience quite an impact from digitalization and automation in the coming years. Respondents that report a higher level of technological skills in their work environment, also report that there are more plans for acquiring new technology in their work environment. This is a pattern also reported in the literature on automation. In addition, our survey indicates that technologically skilled and positive leaders are important when it comes to successful acquisition of technological solutions. The respondents say that lack of time, internal rules and directives, and legal issues are the biggest obstacles when it comes to acquiring new technologies. From the literature we know that for organizations to keep up with the technological development, it is important to look ahead and make plans for the future. Therefore, our recommendation is that the Norwegian Armed Forces develop a competence strategy with clear goals for future, and a plan for how to reach those goals.