Ongoing labor shortages are creating ripple effects throughout the country, most notably for small and midsized businesses. Without staff to operate as usual, many small businesses have had to resort to slashing their hours of operation or cutting back on their services to focus their talent’s bandwidth.Â
Additionally, as former employees’ work is displaced to other employees, employers face risks associated with employee burnout and a limited supply of new workers. And with fewer hands to get work done in addition to ongoing pandemic roadblocks like supply chain bottlenecks, small businesses are in dire need of solutions to enhance productivity across their current workforces, particularly during the holiday season.
A new study by Biz2CreditOpens a new window shows that digitally savvy businesses now embracing technology are managing through the pandemic the strongest. Automation solves the dual business challenges of operational efficiency and employee engagement, benefits that aren’t exclusive to companies at the enterprise level. Advancements in automation programs have made the technology accessible to workers in any field of work, regardless of tech-savviness, so that they can overcome the challenges of today while preparing their teams for the future of work.Â
Automation Enhances Productivity, Enabling Staff To Maintain Quality Service Amid Labor Shortages
According to a surveyOpens a new window conducted by the Society of Human Resource Management (SHRM), 52% of employees who chose to stay at their jobs after coworkers fled during the Great Resignation report that they have taken on more responsibilities. Unsurprisingly, 30% of those who stayed admit they are struggling to get the necessary work done. Expecting remaining employees to fulfill former coworkers’ responsibilities in addition to what’s already on their to-do lists not only risks pushing these overworked individuals out of the company but also jeopardizes the quality of service the business can produce.Â
Consider how labor shortages could undercut customer service. Typically, smaller businesses don’t have standalone customer service centers; rather, it is employees multitasking between fielding inbounds and performing other responsibilities. When businesses are short-staffed, call waiting times rise until an employee is available. In addition to being overwhelming for employees to see a long line of inbounds, it is frustrating for customers who want their queries resolved as soon as possible.Â
Automation can help employers avoid losing both loyal customers and employees to frustrations caused by labor shortages. The software can be deployed to execute manual and time-consuming tasks (e.g., data entry, appointment scheduling, invoicing) so that employees can focus their bandwidth on core services to keep the business moving forward instead of needing to pick up slack manually to keep the business above water. For example, for customer service-related tasks, a chatbot can be deployed as the first point of contact when a customer reaches out through the website and either address the inquiry itself (e.g., directing the customer to the appropriate web page) or elevate the inquiry to an employee. When an employee engages a customer, software robots can work in the background to pull any relevant customer information that would help the employee resolve the issue sooner so that their time is used efficiently instead of shuffling around for information.Â
Importantly, automation does not replace employees; instead, it makes them more effective at their given roles by taking on tasks. This way, small businesses won’t have to cut back on any of their services to maintain their standard of quality. In addition, by setting up automated processes on the company website (e.g., a chatbot to answer questions, an automated form to book appointments and update employee calendars), owners can still take business outside of normal operating hours to ensure they never miss a transaction.Â
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How to Effectively Integrate Automation Into Operations
Organizations don’t need to be enterprise-sized to arm their employees with cutting-edge technologies. When asked the top tasks they would like to automate, respondents across industries in UiPath’s Office Worker SurveyOpens a new window named tasks prevalent in nearly every business model: emails (60%) and inputting data/creating data sets (59%). Modern automation software can fulfill these tasks and more, and with customizable interfaces and application builders, users can design software robots that serve their business’s specific needs.Â
Doing this isn’t as tech-intensive as it sounds either. As low- and no-code automation tools, which, as their names suggest, require little to no coding, become more widespread, small business owners can easily access and leverage advanced automation programs without any formal coding experience. These tools use visual modeling to create workflows, as opposed to manually scripting instructions line by line. Especially for an organization that is new to automation technology, the ability to easily tailor capabilities to the business’s unique needs ensures workers can make the most of automation and smoothly evolve it to their needs over time instead of abandoning it once its initial purpose expires or being burdened with onerous technical maintenance.
Regardless of how advanced their chosen automation program is, it is essential small business owners also invest in and promote automation education. This is to ensure employees understand how to use the innovation to its full advantage, not just to maximize productivity impact but also to avoid adding further work to employees’ already loaded schedules. Small businesses will see returns if employees just learn how to use the applications their employer introduces to them, though the initiative will truly be worthwhile only if employees are trained on how also to tailor automation to their own needs and even build applications from scratch. This knowledge base will empower employees to scale the program on their own to keep up with new market demands instead of creating more maintenance work for administrators down the line.
With free online training resources readily available online on the basics of robotic process automation (RPA) and job-specific courses, small businesses can begin their automation journeys as soon as owners adopt a program. This training quickly pays off: UiPath’s survey also found that of the 44% of respondents who received automation training within the past year, 91% believe it has improved their job performance.
Offering Automation Upskilling Opportunities Encourages Employee Loyalty
By educating and training their workforces on automation-focused skills, small and midsized businesses can not only improve the integration of automation into their operations but also prepare employees for the future of work. Training isn’t just important for implementation; it is needed for continued employee engagement. Seventy-three percent of office workers would be more willing to continue working at a company that offers them the opportunity to learn new skills or further enhance their current ones.
In addition to making existing employees’ workloads more manageable, adopting automation technology can be a differentiator to prospects. Many employees today aren’t just looking for somewhere to make a paycheck; they’re also looking for professional development opportunities so that they can advance in their careers and find increased satisfaction from their work. Specifically, employees are yearning for automation upskilling opportunities.Â
Additionally, automation can help onboard new recruits more seamlessly. The same capabilities that make automation useful in core services also make the technology useful in HR activities, including hiring. Interview cycles can be time-consuming for small business owners, who also need to dedicate time to the clerical aspects of onboarding and training the recruit on the job. Automation can first be deployed early on in this process to screen prospects’ resumes for key skills or attributes. Then, the technology can also be deployed to expedite entering new employees’ information into payroll and any other HR software so that everyone can get back to work sooner. When one global IT company automated its onboarding process, which was costly and prone to human error due to its highly manual nature, it cut the execution time from 30 minutes per recruit to three to four minutes.Â
While challenging circumstances may be what prompt small and midsized businesses to adopt automation, these organizations will quickly witness the productivity and financial payoffs that come with its implementation. Automation can not only sustain and accelerate business momentum amid labor shortages but also trigger a flywheel of employee engagement and satisfaction. Employees will have the much-needed support to deliver stronger service to customers, thereby garnering the business a reputation that attracts prospective customers as well as employees in today’s competitive labor market.Â
Have you implemented automation in your organization? How has it helped you offset labor shortage challenges? Let us know on FacebookOpens a new window , TwitterOpens a new window , and LinkedInOpens a new window .