DIGITAL WORKFORCE – ROBOTS THAT SUPPORT HUMANS

The outbreak of the covid pandemic has rapidly boosted digital transformation in nearly every industry branch, logistics included. As customers, especially in e-commerce, push for the digital acceleration of their businesses, it’s about time to rethink how to properly navigate the recovery in 2022 and become more resilient and more information-driven, which is what customers yearn for.

Robotic Process Automation has already proven valuable. It can be the third most important technology to drive growth after data analytics and artificial intelligence. RPA has become so widespread because it’s broadly applicable.

Do people in your company reach their full potential?

People orientation is directly or indirectly one of the most important values in any company. It is about respecting each other, valuing competencies, and promoting personal development. You might think that workplace automation is gaining ground because of inherent technological advances and because innovation naturally finds its way into the economy. But a study co-authored by an MIT professor shows another cause: robots are more widely used where societies become notably older, filling the gaps in an aging workforce.

According to Eurostat, the EU’s statistical center, there are now fewer than three adults of working age (20-64) for every European citizen aged 65 or older. In nearly every European region, the old-age dependency ratio is forecast to rise. By January 2050, there will be fewer than two working-age adults for each older person. Yet, if a smaller proportion of people works, job positions remain unfilled. Encouraging older people to keep working and paying taxes for an even higher retirement is one way of dealing with this issue. But automation seems to offer an even better solution – one that can satisfy everyone.

Besides, people have little interest in handling mundane, repetitive tasks. This is becoming recognized by more and more enterprises which don’t want to relegate smart people to low-value work.

The power of RPA rests not only in increased efficiency and reduced costs. The ability to truly unleash employees’ creativity by freeing them from uninspiring and menial tasks is crucial.

Automation eases the burden of mundane work on people, and we would like it to always have such a positive impact. But it may happen that some jobs will disappear because of automation, and people may lose their jobs. However, when implemented in the right way, RPA will positively affect employee attitudes and workplace culture. This is because employees will be able to focus on work that is more engaging and more suited to their competencies and interests, even if it is only possible after re- or upskilling.

Automating boring and repetitive manual tasks means employees are free to focus their attention and efforts on things like creative thinking, strategic planning, long-term projects, development, contacting customers, brainstorming with colleagues, empathy, and more. In other words, all the things humans do much, much better than robots.

Creating education and self-improvement opportunities, supported with good communication, helps your staff feel comfortable with technology.

Leading enterprises now organize a blended workforce of humans and automation to leverage the complementary strengths each of them offers. The use of automation enables humans to make the most of their abilities, which is in line with predictions of many studies, saying that by 2030 employees will spend up to 50% more time using technological skills.

We always say, “I don’t have the time for that because I need to do all this.” Now, we will have more time for meaningful and better paid qualitative work.

RPA is system-agnostic software that seeks to mimic the human role in processes and make those processes faster and less error-prone.

Robots imitate the way people work with files, systems, databases, email services, and websites.

RPA eliminates swivel chair work, that is clicking on multiple systems, getting data from one source, and putting it into another.

Using algorithms, we can teach a robot to perform a sequence of activities, handle exceptions, report (to an employee) the need to make a decision, and in rare cases report failure in performing a task. Robots don’t make mistakes related to the source of data, structure, classification, or communication. The slowest robot will still work twice as fast as a human, does not need breaks, does not leave, and doesn’t even require a working station. Software robotics is a non-invasive technology for the company’s IT environment, meaning no hard integration with the existing IT landscape (no development of interfaces) and minimal involvement of the IT departments (accesses and some governance functions).

RPA is ideal for automating workflows that involve legacy systems lacking APIs, virtual desktop infrastructures (VDIs), or database access. In most cases, RPA is being used in conjunction with other automation technologies and techniques like big data analytics, intelligent OCR, content services, machine learning, Natural Language Processing, industrial IoT, and even blockchains.