by Paul Taylor, Chief Marketing Officer, SS&C Blue Prism
As the economy recovers from the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, terms like “the Great Resignation” and “quiet quitting” are trending. In search of different outcomes and opportunities from their job, employees want engaging work and balance.
In addition to creating a positive environment for their employees to support their mental and physical health, improving worker satisfaction carries many other benefits. Employees are more likely to stay with a company where they feel fulfilled. One-third of workers felt engaged in 2022, so there is an opportunity for many firms to improve.
Employers can improve their employees’ satisfaction and well-being by supporting them with software robots called digital workers. Intelligent automation benefits include a satisfied workforce and the capacity to drive better business outcomes.
Why are employees disengaged at work?
Work dissatisfaction doesn’t tend to stem from work hours or schedules but from how employees experience work. The bottom line is that employees want better quality of life and work – and intelligent automation is helping organizations deliver this.
Whether it’s the nurse who spends a third of their day plowing through paperwork, the police officer pouring through documents for information, or the insurance underwriting assistant spending their day processing applications – workers are overburdened with tedious, repetitive tasks. This environment doesn’t serve employees or employers well.
However, with digital workers and employees working together, productivity levels demanded by our increasingly interconnected world are within reach. At the same time, employees can focus on more satisfying work and achieve better work-life balance.
Intelligent automation benefits: it’s not about replacing the worker
One of the biggest misconceptions about automation is it will replace jobs. Instead, automation facilitates career growth, produces learning opportunities, and creates the space to do more intellectually stimulating and rewarding tasks. Doctors and nurses can spend more time with patients, and police officers can focus on progressing cases, patrolling, and so on.
Globally, there are worker shortages, so many employees are overstretched as businesses struggle to maintain adequate levels of hired employees. With intelligent automation, digital workers can perform menial work, and employees can focus on more challenging and exciting careers. The resulting business growth will foster other benefits like better salaries, reduced hours, and greater opportunities. This environment will improve existing employees’ satisfaction and draw in potential workers, helping address the global work shortage.
How organizations can get intelligent automation right
While it sounds easy and straightforward, adopt some digital workers, sit back, and enjoy the benefits of intelligent automation – there are some tips to ensure your organization’s success:
• Communicate clearly: Business leaders should inform and educate employees on digital transformation plans. Leaders need to develop a strategic plan in coordination with input from key stakeholders. Employees should be guided on how digital workers will support them, how they will benefit, and their integral role on this journey.
• Create a clear view of automation goals: Businesses should understand the value of the intelligent automation tools they’re adopting and how to best implement them. This can often include the support of other advanced automation tools, like process intelligence and task mining software, to uncover the best tasks and processes to automate. Senior teams should sponsor the process, advocating and driving intelligent automation at scale across the organization.
• Integrate and operate at scale: A digital worker will be most helpful to employees if it is fully utilized, maximizing intelligent automation capacity in the process. Organizations should adopt digital solutions with intent – think about what will benefit your organization, learn how to employ it best, then do it.
A well-structured, centrally governed, federated, and interconnected intelligent automation platform strategy ensures each part of the business is supported by a reliable set of automation capabilities appropriate for its function and skill level. Workers feel empowered by intelligent automation technologies and will seek out opportunities to be involved. Intelligent automation benefits are multifold, and they are urgently needed. Workers are stretched, and intelligent automation presents a way to satisfy their unmet need
