When we think about automation, the image of a robot doing the work of a human may come to mind, with the humans being sent to the unemployment line and making the world a dystopian place.
Asimov aside, to be honest, running efficiency analysis processes in companies, I’ve been told things like: “Don’t automate too much, I don’t want to lose my job.“
In the same robotic-ruled scenario, but on the opposite side, there is the fear of automation of processes forcing people to work more: “Don’t let the boss find out that now this can be done in half the time, because then I’ll have to deliver twice as much as before.”
Well, luckily for the humans, it’s neither one thing nor the other. Actually, the purpose of automation is to humanize.
People feel more motivated when performing more qualitative and less repetitive tasks.
As several studies has proved (1) (2), people feel more motivated when performing more qualitative and less repetitive tasks. They also show that performing tasks that we consider unnecessary can lead to boredom, demotivation and even depression.
In other words, our human, social and creative part, the part that feels happy by contributing to the group, doesn’t like to do tasks in which it’s only replaceable labor.
And that’s exactly what we can achieve with automation, freeing people from repetitive and low-quality tasks, to provide them with the time to dedicate to more stimulating tasks in which they add actual value.
A machine searching for data in a PDF document, copying it into an Excel table and sorting it alphabetically in a report, is not going to cause the person in charge to be fired or to have to deliver twice as much as before.
Rather, it will allow to that person, who surely has the skills to do more than simply copy & paste, to have time to use their human abilities deriving, for example, meaningful conclusions from the reports the machine has made.
Automation strategies must always start with people. By providing greater motivation and individual happiness, we foster an environment of creativity and collaboration.
That is why automation strategies must always start with people. Because, by providing greater motivation and individual happiness, we foster an environment of creativity and collaboration —we have more time and less fatigue—which helps companies, in addition to obtaining better results, to contribute to a more humane world.