We often hear about terrifying scenarios that show how the robots will take control of our world. Recently, as more and more businesses opt for automatization, peoples have started to fear for their jobs believing that a robot will soon replace them. It is obvious to see that robot automatization has had a huge impact on the business and workforce landscapes. However, despite the concerns that exist, those changes don’t seem to be negative. In fact, many specialists have linked robots in the workplace with increased employee satisfaction because employees take advantage of the help the artificial intelligence offers.
So, will robots in the workplace really destroy our jobs or will we be able to see them as our coworkers? Not really and here’s why:
The rise of robots in the business landscape
Nowadays, most businesses rely on automatization and complete more than half of their business processes with the help of technology and artificial intelligence. Yet, while others may only see a darker side of the rise of robots in the workplace fearing that robots will steal our jobs, we all have to admit that technology makes our everyday tasks less complicated. It shouldn’t come as a surprise that more and more entrepreneurs embrace technology and implement it into their businesses because it can empower their companies to grow. In today’s digitalized era, businesses can rarely survive in the corporate landscape without embracing technology because today’s consumers expect them to. There is a multitude of reasons why businesses have accepted automation and technological advancements:
- Better interaction with their customers- The very first reason why businesses had to an embraced technology was because that today’s consumers have changed their preferences to interact with brands. Technological advancements have completely changed the way consumers purchase products or services and how they stay in contact with their favorite brands. Thus, companies had to go into the online world in order to keep their loyal customers and attract new ones. That is why most marketing strategies created today involve at least a few online marketing tools. Moreover, artificial intelligence has also empowered businesses to offer better customer services. The rise of chatbots, text, and voice analytics aims to revolutionize the way businesses offer help and support to their customers.
- Increased employee’ productivity- Despite the concerns that robots and artificial intelligence will make things go wrong for the human workforce, in fact, they aim to empower human employees to work more efficiently in less time. First of all, artificial intelligence can help employees deal with the fast-growing paper load and data which used to imply a tiring and long process of dealing with a huge amount of paperwork. Nowadays, most businesses store their business and customer data with cloud-based storage services which helps employees’ access and manage the information they need to complete their tasks within seconds, even remotely.
- Reduced costs- One of the top priorities of every business is the reduction of their costs in order to increase the profit. Robot automation in the workplace can reduce the costs of a company simply by preventing and eliminating human errors. Moreover, increased efficiency and productivity of the employees have a strong connection with increased profit.
- Competitive advantage- In today’s ultra-competitive business landscape, companies need to keep up with the fast-changing trends if they want to survive on the market. As technological advancements are released almost on a daily basis, they empower businesses to have a competitive advantage and place themselves ahead of their industry rivals.
How can the robot and human employees coexist?
When discussing the robot automatization implementation into a company, most employees may think that they may lose their jobs over a robot. However, this could not be further from the truth because technology, robots, and artificial intelligence have been created and designed to help and empower them for better productivity, not to replace the creative thinking and imagination skills of a human employee. But how can robots and human employees coexist in the workplace? Robot automatization implementation in the workplace can be successful if you help your employees understand that robots won’t take their jobs but rather help them become better at what they do.
- Robots make the processes faster- Human employees shouldn’t fear that robots will do their job but rather understand that it will help them complete their job tasks faster. For example, employees that have to deal on a daily basis with a huge amount of paperwork can complete their responsibilities faster by being able to access more data in less time. Also, as robots can help reduce human mistakes, it means that your employees won’t have to spend extra time figuring out what they did wrong and how to fix their mistakes.
- Reduce workplace accidents- Industrial collaborative robots can also help human employees by providing greater workplace safety. Dangerous tasks such as lifting heavy items or handling toxic materials can be completed by robots without exposing human employees to the risk of injuries.
- Human employees can focus on high-level tasks- the manufacturing industry is one of the best examples to give. Before the automatization of the processes, human employees had to spend most of their time at work doing boring and tiring repetitive tasks which didn’t allow them to focus on high-level tasks or innovation. However, since robots can now fulfill those low-level tasks, the human workforce can only supervise them while spending more time on more important tasks that add value and influence the company’s growth.
While skeptics perceive the rise of robots in the workplace as a negative aspect and a threat for their job, it is believed that robots can, in fact, increase the demand of companies for human workers that can complete high-level tasks by using their creativity and innovation-driven way of thinking. Both entrepreneurs and their employees should be open-minded about embracing robot automatization implementation and the multitude of benefits technology and artificial intelligence bring.