Many organizations look for ways to streamline their process. Streamlining allows them to lessen human error, have tasks completed faster, and avail more time for their employees to focus on other areas of work.
To business owners, automation of business processes makes money sense because the business market is very competitive. The faster a company avails its products into the market, the faster they get to reach customers and edge out competitors.
How about employees? Sometimes, when workers hear that the business they work in will automate some processes, some do not welcome the change. Why? On the positive side, it makes their work easier. On the negative side, employees fear they might lose their jobs when employers automate specific operations. Their fear is not baseless. A Deloitte study on the impact of technology, robotics, and automation on the UK’s economy stated that “over 800,000 jobs were lost but nearly 3.5 million new jobs were created.”
What is Employee Engagement?
For your business profitability and productivity, your employees must remain connected and committed to their organization. How your organization creates a positive working space for its employees influences employee engagement. This engagement comes about through your company’s culture, management styles, leadership, internal communication, and the company’s reputation.
Why is Employee Engagement Important?
The better your business maintains a high level of employee engagement, the less turnover of staff and higher their productivity. The more you engage your employees, the greater the employee satisfaction. Employee satisfaction leads to higher performance and innovation.
How does Automation improve Employee Engagement?
You appreciate shopping at a store that has automated checkout counters. Even if a clerk operates the counters, you welcome the automated scanning process of items you want to buy. Why is this so? It allows you to buy products and leave the store faster than the slow process of manual price calculators.
The store clerk also appreciates the automated process because it allows the clerk to focus on other areas, check out customers faster, and eliminate mundane tasks. One of the robotic process automation software companies, surveyed workers who reported that they wasted approximately 5 hours every week on tasks they felt could be automated. Another good example is how Amazon Flex automated their delivery process with Amazon Flex bot app, that grabs the delivery block for you cutting the needed time for each order.
There is a detachment between company executives’ view of automation and the improvement of productivity and their employee’s view of it. How can companies bridge this gap? Communication on how the upcoming changes from an automated product will assist the employees to go a long way in building trust in the leadership team. Reassurance of job retention or reassignment contributes to allaying employees’ fears.
Can Automation Assist Employee Engagement?
We cannot deny that the rapid increase of technology solutions brings a change within the workforce environment. Employees become the customers and vice versa. They expect technology to improve the way they live their lives and improve how they do their jobs. What do statistics show about automation and improvement in employee engagement? According to a report from Forrester, 57% of surveyed companies show that automation improved their employee engagement.
Automation offers accountability within a company. The request for information to complete a work is in the automated product, thus an employee does not have to chase for the same information from colleagues to complete their task.
Final Thoughts
We cannot escape the fact that technology is driving the path of changes within organizations and the consumer market. Business executives and their employees must change to fit within technology advancement or face losing customers. Loss of customers equates to business failure. Therefore, as much as atomizing business processes has negative and positive elements, it goes a long way for a company and its employees’ survival.
