Deciding to automate processes in your business needs to be about more than your bottom line. Your employees are your greatest assets, so what are the benefits of automation in the workplace that impact the PEOPLE in your business?
With rapid advances in automation, like the increased popularity of artificial intelligence (AI), many repetitive and routine tasks can now be done by machines. It feels like not a day goes by without a news or opinion piece popping up about how robots are taking people's jobs. And while it is clear the labour force is changing, are these articles telling it like it is or simply scare-mongering?
There is no denying there is real employee apprehension about the future of the workforce, but it turns out most Australians are more concerned with their jobs being lost to poor management choices than automation. So, how can smart leadership lean into this sentiment and improve employee experience through the benefits of automation in the workplace?
Here are some ideas on how to introduce new business process automation technology with a focus on improving employee satisfaction and increasing team efficiency and productivity.
Employee satisfaction
One of the benefits of automation in the workplace is the opportunity to remove repetitive, low-value work from employees' responsibilities. This helps to motivate team members, who typically are not interested in wasting time and want to get more valuable work completed.
This includes moving time from thankless tasks, such as searching for documents or manual data entry, into more interesting, higher-value activities such as analysis, strategy and critical problem-solving.
Team efficiency
Today's workplace is characterised by a demand for swift and timely action and it's clear business process automation can be used to create greater team efficiency.
Automation is not only great for accomplishing tasks faster, but it also minimises human error due to mistakes, lapses in concentration or fatigue, all of which can lead to efficiency problems. Automating a range of repetitive tasks will also free up teams to collaborate on more creative or strategic initiatives.
As any team member will attest to, a frustrating part of most jobs is the bottleneck caused by an ineffective approval process. When looking to make an approval process more efficient, a workflow tool that can use simple business rules to automate approvals is worth its weight in gold.
Team productivity
CIO states that 40% of respondents to a recent survey said they spend at least a quarter of their workweek on manual, repetitive tasks. Keeping that in mind, the potential of automation to free up employee time is clear.
By improving day-to-day business workflows with automation, teams become more productive, working smarter not harder. As automation technology grows so does the creation of new products, jobs and roles. Workers are not being replaced, rather they are being displaced, opening up their schedules and capacity.
With more team capacity comes the opportunity for collaboration on high-value work like problem-solving, developing new ideas and thinking strategically. Here, automation helps businesses by freeing up employee time to focus on moving into the future, increasing revenue and staying ahead of the competition.
These three benefits of automation in the workplace will continue to have a significant impact on employee experience in the coming years. By choosing to embrace change, your business can improve employee satisfaction, as well as the efficiency and productivity of your teams.
Whether you're looking to scale up or diversify your business, automation can help you create efficiencies, support future growth and add value to your organisation. Download our guide, Business Automation: How it generates value and supports growth, to learn more.
