Digital automation skills are in high demand and that will only grow. It’s up to employers to upskill their workforce in order to 1) keep up with the speed and efficiency of their competitors 2) help people adapt to the future of work, and 3) provide a more effective service.
Automation isn’t taking over jobs; it’s taking over aspects of jobs. So, let’s run through some of the workplaces where automation will be, or is being, introduced as a partner, not a replacement.
Trading
In the financial world, organisations are taking advantage of the potential of automation to handle highly complex tasks at speed. But with the fine margins and large amounts of money involved, they're not simply applying automation across the board without the expertise and systems to direct it.
Zar Amrolia runs a fintech company in London that uses automation to help staff analyse large data sets and execute trades quicker and more efficiently than they could alone. Hybridising the human-machine operation lets employees focus on creative and personable tasks like refining investment models and building client relationships.
Rather than making traders obsolete, automation is encouraging them to upgrade their skills and focus on higher-value areas. Automation may improve the speed and accuracy with which positive outcomes can be achieved but, even with the introduction of AI into automated processes, the systems are only as good as the models and information they are based on.
Accounting
What is accounting, fundamentally, if not a series of complex mathematical calculations? The point of automation is to perform these calculations and tasks accurately and quickly. And the key word here is ‘accurately’ – human error is the bane of many a business, but even more so in finance teams. They can’t just wave away a slightly wrong calculation, as one small error could end up dramatically diverging the books from reality.
McKinsey found in 2018 that 42% of all finance operations could be automated, and a further 19% partially automated. Removing repetitive processes gives accountants the freedom to focus on their most human skills, like problem solving and relationship building. As automation reduces time spent with spreadsheets, it breathes new life into accountants’ advisory muscles.
Healthcare
If the pandemic has shown us anything, it is the cracks in our healthcare system. Doctors and nurses have been working long hours for low pay for years, and we are expected to lose large numbers of healthcare workers to burnout once the virus is under control.
The state of the NHS’s digital technology would also be laughable if it wasn’t so serious. Public Health England lost the data for 16,000 Covid tests because they reached the limit on a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet, meaning many people with positive tests were not told to self-isolate.
The pressure on NHS staff needs relieving, and digital transformation and automation could be the cure.
We’ve a long way to go before we get to the artificial doctors from Star Trek and Star Wars. Today automation is better suited to running routine tasks such as back office administration and check ups. Apps like Ali Parsa’s Babylon Health not only help patients with quick online appointments, they also help GPs automate their administrative tasks. They can focus on what they were trained to do: provide care. And by educating patients on their health, they ease the burden on doctors by avoiding unnecessary appointments and freeing up their calendars.
Teaching
A teacher’s job is to educate, but in reality a teacher’s day doesn’t begin when the kids arrive, and it doesn’t end when they go home. There’s marking tests, planning lessons, maintaining parent relationships and scheduling as well as the endless tasks we can just lump in as “administration”.
As we’ve seen above, automation helps remove repetitive parts of the job. Training teachers with robotic process automation (RPA) software helps them mark papers quickly and accurately, track attendance and keep stock of teaching supplies. Time is saved to focus on what’s important – the instruction, engagement, coaching and advising that is so core to their roles.
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Halting burnout, freeing up time, and becoming more effective. With automation as a partner, employees can make businesses more profitable, They can retrieve more time to positively impact their communities, and simply enjoy their jobs.