The future is directly based on automation. It tends to be present in all aspects of our daily lives. Reflecting a few seconds, remembering recent news and even some personalities like Elon Musk, it ends up getting easy to visualize the near future, for example, in autonomous vehicles. These cars are already present in the daily life of some countries, with a considerable rise and accession. Then, very soon they will take us from home to the office without, if you want, we need to touch in the direction.
What about the labor market? How have these changes occurred and how has automation already put (or should have already put) a clear need to move in the Human Resources teams of many companies?
With the contribution and technological advancement, it is a trend of marked companies to increase their investments in automation, therefore changing the functioning of their workforces, integrating employees’ talents and technology. These changes imply a very different profile of professionals in the coming years.
Studies conducted by Willis Towers Watson indicate that in the last three years there was a 9% increase in the proportion of automated activities. This penetration tends to reach 30% over the next three years. But after all, what is automation?
What is automation? What are your main methods in the company’s environments?
Automation itself is characterized as an automatic control system, where mechanisms validate and verify its correct functioning from pre-established commands. It can also be described as a set of techniques applied to a process, to make it more efficient. Whether it’s lowering costs or increasing your performance.
In the workplace, for automation, we can include artificial intelligence, robotics, machine learning, among others. But when we talk about automation in the workplace, it is essential to know the three main automation methods and their related objectives.
- Cognitive Automation: it is the one that includes artificial intelligence and machine learning. Commonly used in performing complex, non-routine tasks that require data analysis. Here, instead of performing specific actions, automation uses complex algorithms to interpret data and learn from it. It is a technology commonly found in recommendation systems, surveillance systems, autonomous vehicles, among others.
- Social Robotics: Social robotics uses the fusion of physical equipment (such as sensors, and other kinds of hardware) with artificial intelligence algorithms. We have automation that interacts with people. For example IoT gadgets, standalone drones, and monitoring systems.
- Robotic Process Automation (RPA): within corporate environments, perhaps the most used compared to other automation methods. RPA (Robotic Process Automation) allows streamlining routine business processes, of great volume and low complexity. It grants simplifying daily processes in day-to-day work, giving the possibility for professionals to focus on the extract of their formerly operational activities. Here, we can mention cadastral update software, marketing automation or bots to perform small tasks.
Machine Learning is one arm of the computational engineering that emerged from study and pattern recognition, computational learning and artificial intelligence to create systems that can learn from data identifying patterns and taking decisions with the least possible human interference.
In general, automation in the workplace allows companies and people to perform their work more effectively, and speed, decreasing human error and allowing people to focus on analytical activities, of greater value for professional and organizational growth.
Automation and Industry 4.0
It is noteworthy that most of these automation run in parallel to the evolution of Industry 4.0, also known as the fourth industrial revolution. This concept encompasses several technological innovations in recent years used to facilitate industrial processes.
The Industry 4.0 concept understands that integrating machines, software, and assets can create smarter production networks, enabling predicting failures, adapting requirements and planning changes more accurately and quickly.
Today, the main tools of Industry 4.0, and automation, are the Internet of Things (IoT) and Big Data Analytics.
The HR challenges that arise with automation.
With so much technology and questions related to software and programming, it’s easy to ask where the Human Resources team comes in throughout this change. But the answers (and new questions) easily come to mind when we remember that digitization of the market and companies brings changes in the way of working, in the formation and acquisition of talents and in the skills necessary for the execution of Activities.
Therefore, automation and market digitization will create direct impacts on the design of positions and hiring models, also, of course, in the operating mode of the operation.
That is, in the way that the company and employee relate. Thus, HR should look for methodologies that:
- Improve the remuneration of professionals with specific skills;
- Improve communication and information sharing;
- Increase work flexibility by providing more flexible hours and the possibility of performing in external environments to the office;
- Redesign the positions to deliver the right job description to the properly trained professional;
- Develop leaders who keep pace with technological change, making them drive the digital ecosystem.
Opportunities automation provides for the HR team
In addition to these employee care, it is also essential to visualize the advantages of automation for the Human Resources team. As we have seen before, establishing processes and workflows is one of the foundations of modern business management.
Therefore, creating, recycling and modeling autonomous processes for Human Resources teams provides more focus on strategy and a macro view of the operation, whether from control panels, or automatic periodic reports.
The possibilities are endless and give way to automation in place of repetitive activities that contribute to the construction of a more robust and charming employer brand. Thus, automation for the HR area can contribute to:
- Recruitment and Selection;
- Positions management;
- Management of curriculum vitae and candidates;
- Automation of feedback emails for candidates;
- Personnel Department Processes
- Holiday Management;
- Onboarding and shutdown of employees;
- Updating employee registration data;
- Availability of documents (payslip, income report among others.);
- The input of labor events;
The inclusion of automation in the day-to-day of HR ensures more agility for the area, delivering an experience of the most digital, autonomous and simple employee from the beginning of their professional journey in a company until its end. And HR professionals gain more breath to take care of their teams.