The much-discussed Great Resignation is the result of many factors: healthcare concerns related to COVID-19, families’ challenges in finding adequate childcare options, and worker burnout, to name a few. Then there has been an “existential awakening” of workers looking to find more meaning and fulfillment during their workdays, which have become boring and filled with too many burdensome manual or technical processes. They just want to do the jobs they were hired to do and maintain their hard-earned proficiencies. They want to feel more…human.
If the Great Resignation is really the Great Upgrade, then the best way to attract and retain employees is to offer a job that better utilizes their skills. Digital labor makes this possible by shouldering the grunt work for your employees and putting them back in charge.
Robotic process automation (RPA) and AI-powered digital labor appeal to the full spectrum of organizational employees. First, such technology offers executives and managers the ability to more fully motivate employees and facilitate their productivity, especially in a remote or hybrid work environment. Second, it provides rank-and-file employees with tangible and intangible benefits that enhance job satisfaction—less of the manual and technical processes that are just too hard to manage, more opportunities to exercise their proficiencies.
How Digital Labor Works
Digital employees are software-based labor that works alongside human employees. These “workers” actually look and act a lot like humans in that they have defined roles and authorities, the security credentials necessary to access systems in which to perform tasks, and the ability to understand the logic of tasks and independently sequence them to execute a process. Once leaders authorize access, human workers can be in charge of the bots, helping RPA software to learn from them, including how to handle repetitive tasks so they can become more creative and have more control over their work lives.
What can be done with all this digital labor? A digital employee can provide support for menial, repetitive, programmable tasks, especially across functional areas in marketing, sales, finance and HR. For instance, you can put a digital employee to work sending emails, scheduling meetings and procuring approvals, or connect it to popular business applications such as Salesforce or Workday to access and act on information. A digital employee can even tap into a library of skills and resources to partner with you on complex work such as business plans customized for your role. The time gained allows human workers to focus more on high-value responsibilities like customer service relationships, complex brainstorming and strategic collaborations.
Enhancing workforce efficiencies with Robotic Process Automation
GAM, a distributor of Medicines and Perfumery, was able to realize significant financial and time savings by turning to IBM Robotic Process Automation. Read on to learn how this solution allowed GAM’s employees to focus on more intelligent, higher-value tasks.
Download NowIBM has long been an innovator in ways to make organizations—and their workforces—more productive, and IBM’s RPA solutions are particularly well suited for the era of digital work. IBM offers an impressive array of technology, market expertise and process innovation that helps make enterprises more productive, while at the same time allowing employees to concentrate their energies and creativity on high-value activities.
