More or less: Maximising the benefits of automation

It’s coming for your job – but it’s not AI, and it’s usually the job you don’t want to do.  

While much of the hype around potential job losses has focused on artificial intelligence, most businesses are currently engaged with more basic automation.  

S&W’s recent survey of 500 business owners from across the UK suggests it’s continuing to transform the workplace. Close to one in five (18%) employers in our survey agreed strongly that they were planning to “further automate processes to reduce staff headcounts”. Another 28% somewhat agreed.  

Tax changes are helping accelerate the trend. The employers’ national insurance rate rise (and lowering of the earnings threshold) in the October 2024 Budget prompted many businesses to review their staffing. More than one in five firms in the survey (21%) had already increased their use of automation to replace people in response. Another one in four business owners (38%) said they planned to.  

Even without the NI hike, however, the attractions of automation are significant. It has the potential to cut costs, accelerate processes, improve accuracy and, if it reduces head counts, it can also enhance the working lives of many employees.  

Predating the recent strides in generative AI and large language models, back in 2021, the Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR) found that UK companies investing in automation saw an average increase in revenues of 5% within three months of their investment. Moreover, the study found that the number of jobs at businesses investing in automation grew.  

With UK businesses trailing the US in investment in automation (despite one of the big four in robotic process automation, Blue Prism, being British) many of these gains are still on the table. Critically, though, automation is a business change as much as a technological tool. As such, it needs to be carefully considered, planned and managed to realise its potential. 

For most businesses, robotic process automation (RPA) using tools from companies like Blue Prism (or market leader UiPath, used by S&W) remains the low-hanging fruit: Automating high-volume, repetitive, rules-based tasks – wherever possible by using existing systems. In some cases, it is simply a case of developing APIs (application programming interfaces) to integrate systems, allowing data to be automatically shared between them.  

The automated tasks– often data entry and verification – are boring but frequently important and part of processes that may be heavily regulated, such as client onboarding, applications, communications and account changes. The benefits RPA delivers in terms of accuracy and risk reduction for these processes, identifying mistakes and eliminating the scope for human error in entering or rekeying data, can be as significant as the efficiency it brings.  

The technology is also relatively simple and mature. It is rigidly rules-based, so the business can set realistic limits for data fields to avoid errors (so that no invoice greater than £10,000 is automatically processed without oversight, for example). There’s no scope in traditional RPA systems for AI’s hallucinations.  

That is not to say that RPA is without challenges. In particular, it requires an in-depth understanding of every step of the processes being automated, to put in place the right rules, logic map and limits – with the flexibility to easily adapt to changing requirements, as processes inevitably evolve.  

A failure to get the process right will result in high levels of exceptions that the system fails to process and refers to human review, undermining its purpose. As Microsoft’s Bill Gates has put it, “The first rule of any technology used in a business is that automation applied to an efficient operation will magnify the efficiency. The second is that automation applied to an inefficient operation will magnify the inefficiency.”  

Nor does all this suggest that AI has no role and won’t have profound impacts on workplace efficiency, productivity and profitability. In fact, it is already helping to enable and enhance RPA: AI task-mining solutions, such as Soroco’s Scout platform, capture and analyse users’ activities on organisations’ systems to uncover work patterns and identify bottlenecks. They can often identify opportunities and methods for automating tasks.  

Crucially, however, people remain key.  

In some cases, the human benefits of shifting work to robotics are unalloyed. The S&W client processing almost about 250 tax returns for its subsidiary companies each December, forcing its finance function to work over Christmas, is just one example. An RPA was able to compress weeks of work into a few days, enabling everyone to have the holiday.  

In other case, as our survey suggests, automation does mean lower headcounts. As often, however, it can create opportunities to enhance productivity and free employees to focus on higher-value work. In relieving workers of highly repetitive, dull tasks it can enhance employee satisfaction, engagement, retention and recruitment.  

Regardless of whether automation is reducing headcounts or refocussing existing staff, however, organisations must carefully manage the change to avoid undermining or frustrating its goals. Considering the people and processes surrounding the process being automated is critical to its success. As researchers on the impact of RPA on staff have put it, “[H]ow businesses implement the adoption… plays a key role in influencing their employees’ attitudes and behaviours.” 

To put it more simply, businesses must remember that, while processes can be robotic, people are not.