As the pace of technological advancement grows, so too does the scope of the opportunity to take advantage of automation across all manner of businesses. It has the potential for great change across the working landscape – reflected in the fear from a large proportion of workers that they could be replaced by robots – but the truth of it is likely to be more subtle, with automation being integrated seamlessly into processes that empower employees to be more productive rather than supplanting them entirely.
In this article, we’ll explore a few of the ways in which businesses can harness technology to benefit everyone involved.
Handling repetitive tasks
One major way in which automation can be a boon to both businesses and employees alike is in its handling of mundane, repetitive tasks. Studies show that there is a correlation between having to perform the same tasks over and over again, and a decline in mental health. Therefore, if you want your staff at their best and brightest, finding ways to help them become more efficient could help with their mental health.
There is an ever-expanding variety of software solutions that can automate large swathes of activity like data entry, document management and other low complexity but time-consuming tasks, freeing up your workforce to be more proactive. This is also an area in which AI-driven tools are coming more to the fore.
Streamlining workflows
The fewer steps that you need to take to complete basic or routine tasks, the more time that you can devote to thinking about the bigger picture, or utilising the creativity that machines can never replicate. Leveraging workflow automation tools is increasingly popular for streamlining complex as well as time consuming processes from the press of a single button, rather than manually inputting data which can often require more time, effort and potentially cause inaccurate outputs.
Use cases can range from the generation and distribution of tasks to the appropriate worker, to alert systems that notify people by email when steps in a work process are complete. Businesses are also benefitting from the automation for tax processes to reduce human error and compliance risks.
Enabling data-driven decision-making
As more and more of what we do is tracked digitally, it becomes easier to measure the impact of certain decisions. Automation promises to be huge in this area, with analytics and reporting tools delivering immediate insights at a moment’s notice. Real-time monitoring and adjustments are more accessible and powerful through automated tools than they could ever be through human piloting, giving businesses more agility to make changes based on the evidence.
In competitive fields where one wrong move can set you back behind a horde of rivals, the more informed your decision-making can be, the better – and that is the key to automation as a whole. Its value lies in informing humans to make decisions, rather than a tool to be utilised as a threat to jobs.