In the modern business world there is no black and white between people and robots. Automation is changing every industry, from improving productivity and decreasing costs to increasing product output; but there is one little problem that is keeping this anything but full automation – people are still needed. However, instead of replacing people, automation is gradually enhancing and supporting people’s performance, which is a perfect cycle of growth.
The Role of Humans in the Automated World
Although many companies have implemented automation to a large extent, there are some positions that only a human can do because only humans are creative, analytical, have emotions and can solve problems. These skills are important for tasks such as:
Developing and maintaining automated systems: Automation can work on the repetitive tasks, but people are needed to design, implement and moderate the automation systems.
High level supervision and decision making: Automation can provide information and findings but people have to make the final strategic decisions based on them.
To tackle unanticipated circumstances: Since business environments are constantly changing, people are better in handling change than fixed automated systems.
Ethical issues: Since automation raises ethical issues which require human intervention to ensure equity, accountability and the right use of technology.
To provide direct, personal and friendly contact with the customer. While there are many ways that automation can be used to handle the customer’s concerns, nothing is as effective as having a real person do it.
Mutual Enhancement: This is not product and coexistence between humans and automation, this is enhancement. The ability of automation to enable humans to be more effective in their niche.
Productivity and efficiency: Automation can help in improving the flow of work and precision thus increasing production.
However, to the same degree that humans complement automation, they excel at some oversight skills.
Context and interpretation: This is the ability of humans to understand the data and conclusions that automation can come up with.
Quality control: This ensures that there are checks and balances in the systems to detect any possible errors or prejudice.
Innovation: This means that people can use automation as a means of coming up with new products, services or business strategies.
Hence, it can be claimed that the conflict between humans and automation is not black and white. On the contrary, it is a interactive model where one complements the other. Therefore, by adopting the automation with the understanding of the importance of human skills, organizations can leverage new levels of performance and growth. In the coming years, the ability to integrate people and automation effectively will be a key determinant of success for most businesses.
