Computers in the Workplace

            

            While my goal is to eventually be a librarian, I do not yet have any real life experience working in that environment. Therefore, for this post I am choosing to write about the standard box store retail environment and the role computers play in them. Computers, with their more recent trends of becoming more powerful and portable, have become increasingly significant in big box retail stores. It is important for these employees to be computer literate on the most basic of levels so that when registers upgrade from a keyboard function to a touchscreen, they are able to use logic and knowledge of computer software to determine how to navigate the programs run in order to ring up a customer's cart. The employees that monitor the self-check registers need to have a basic understanding of troubleshooting in addition to the software operating system so that they can resolve any issues a customer has with the machine.

            Not only are there self-check options in many of these stores (such as Target and Wal-Mart) and the employee operated registers are constantly being improved upon, but most, if not all, employees are equipped during their shift with handheld computers to perform their various tasks. The handheld devices have a variety of apps installed on them to cover the vast array of tasks needing to be performed in the store on any given day. These tasks include, but are not limited to, fulfilling online orders placed for later pick up, price changes throughout the store, accessing information to print out signs, auditing the inventory, cataloguing items stored in the back room, tracking sales made and sales projections, knowing which items to pull out of the back room to re-stock the floor display in order to keep the inventory filled, and accessing the guides for setting up the merchandise displays. Without being computer literate, these tasks, among others, will not be completed in as timely and efficient manner as those that utilize the digital tools at their disposal.

            Over the next ten years, if the historic trends continue going forward, the computers available to the employees will become smaller, faster, and more user-friendly. With the addition of the current situation of a global pandemic, I would not at all be surprised to see check lanes become not only more streamlined, but also instate a more contact-free method of totaling and bagging of customers' purchases. I also expect an increase of orders being placed online through the customers mobile devices to be received in a drive-up scenario.