The Human Benefits: How Automation Helps Your Employees
The future is now, and as more people are coming around to the reality that working with robots and automated processes is the norm, it’s crucial to address the benefits it can bring to any company, especially with regards to the employees’ side of things. Automation can bring about many concerns from the perspective of an employee, but it can yield a number of positives too. What are these?
A Focus on Local Initiatives
Something that we don’t necessarily consider, especially if we take to outsourcing and offshoring a number of processes, but when we start to automate, it can, believe it or not, bring about a more localized way of thinking. You can read more about local production and automation at the aforementioned link, but when we think about automation, there is a sense of globalization associated with it. But this does not have to be the case. When we are addressing local initiatives, it will foster a very community-based approach to work, which can help improve the culture of the company.
It Improves Critical Thinking
From the perspective of the human workforce, one of the more controversial aspects of having robots or automation take over your processes is the very simple notion that robots do not come with critical-thinking skills. People are motivated when they have a purpose, and need to perform tasks that are stimulating. This is why duties like stocktaking and basic mathematics can be beneficial to automate. When people have a sense of purpose, motivation will increase. It’s important for robots to do the more menial tasks, therefore passing on the critical thinking jobs to the people that work for you. This means that your employees are engaging more with the work, but you are also upskilling them, so they can work towards more fulfilling roles, all the while, the robots are doing the number-crunching jobs on the factory floor.
Improved Safety Measures
This is especially true in a factory environment or a warehouse. When there are a number of threats to safety related to tedious tasks, this workplace tiredness and monotony can result in human error, which will bring about an increased risk of injury. When automation or robotic resources can take over dangerous and tedious duties, this greatly reduces health and safety issues, leaving the employees to conduct more important and functional activities. When human error is reduced, it will improve the business in infinite ways.
The Potential for More Human Initiative
The fact is that when employees feel threatened by the advent of machinery, there needs to be people to actually monitor and keep an eye on the processes. Automation or robots can encourage your employees to upskill into more responsible roles, such as management.
Keeping your team healthy and happy isn’t necessarily so easy when you are incorporating robotics or automation into the mix. But you have to consider there are a number of positives that any employee will experience from automation, and therefore, your business will feel the benefits as well.