Looking beyond their employment effects, we examine how automation technologies reshape how firms value and treat their employees. Using a novel text-based measure of firm investment in automation, we show that greater automation is associated with lower employee-related CSR scores and more negative employee reviews of senior leadership and work-life balance, even as career opportunities improve. Automation also reduces the prominence of employees in firm strategy and weakens employee-related dimensions of organizational culture. To establish causality, we exploit variation in the cost of operating automation technologies driven by changes in electricity prices. Consistent with automation reducing firms’ dependence on labor and strengthening their bargaining power, these effects are stronger in industries and firms more exposed to automation and in more monopsonistic labor markets. Our findings reveal organizational and social consequences of automation that extend beyond its impact on employment and productivity.