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6 Steps to Introduce RPA to Your Employees
This article explains how to introduce RPA to your employees and painlessly get them used to it. The following 6 steps will make the transition easier for everyone involved.
Organizations worldwide have begun deploying automation processes in their administrative and managerial structure. This tech-oriented approach used for effectively evaluating the solutions and performing mundane, repetitive tasks is known as Robotic Process Automation (RPA).
Firms, large or small, have begun with the research use cases and running the proof of concept (POC) pilots before their first RPA project. However, the most crucial step that most firms miss is the use of practices that make employees receptive to this radical change.
In most organizations, the executive committee at the firm’s top-level drives the RPA initiatives. While they intend to make the business operations efficient and relieve the employees from repetitive tasks, this intent is often not shared with the employees.
The result is, unfortunately, the feeling of job insecurity among the change-resistant employees. Therefore, those at the top of the organization should go the extra mile to ensure that RPA is a success in the business program of the firm and that the workforce feels empowered rather than insecure when they adapt to this novel toolkit.
RPA Change Management Best Practices: 6 Steps to Introduce RPA to Your Employees
Here are some best practices that firms should follow so that employees look at RPA with a positive outlook and identify opportunities that are available to them with the help of advanced automation.
1. Present the benefits of RPA to the employees
The firm can begin gaining the employees’ trust by sharing a detailed presentation highlighting the benefits of the RPA. Rather than a technical presentation loaded with jargon and discrete explanations, the focus of this presentation should be on an interactive and hands-on demo session that makes the employees experience the difference in their everyday work scenarios.
Employees will soon begin to realize that RPA aids in removing the toiling and repetitive work, and it’s genuinely worthwhile. When employees start believing that this tool would help them personally and would not be a threat to their current jobs, they will begin embracing it remarkably.
2. Make employees stakeholders in the RPA implementation process
The best ideas for automation would come from the people who use this technology to solve their problems. Therefore, one of the best practices during RPA implementation is making employees brainstorm about various automation ideas that would solve their current problems and glitches. Firms can organize events where employees would have the complete liberty to develop ideas where RPA identifies solutions for their issues.
This would gradually make the employees less resistant to this novel technology, and feel like stakeholders in its implementation and application. When organizations would trust their employees is coming up with bottlenecks and solutions that RPA can address, it would be helpful in re-engineering systems according to the RPA toolkit and the subsequent creation of bots.
3. Redefine tasks of the workforce in alignment with the RPA
When employees understand the amount of work that RPA would do, such as finding records for multiple customer systems and rote-answering the phone calls, they would be freed up to perform other high-value work where soft skills and strategic behavior are needful.
Thus, employees no longer need to perform manual data entry work; they can adhere to tasks such as dealing with customers and resolving issues and discrepancies, which need to be redefined in their modified vital responsibility areas. It is required to make the employees understand that bots would not manage themselves, and all the organization’s tasks cannot be automated. Therefore, software assets would be required to handle tasks such as monitoring, updating, and maintaining the bots to run the RPA efficiently.
4. Train and upskill the workforce to empower them
Before deploying RPA into the organizational structure, firms need to invest in the continuous improvement of their employees. In the post-RPA corporate system, employees no longer would be required to do mundane tasks; instead, they would be performing more valuable tasks involving problem-solving, critical thinking, and communication skills.
When firms would train the workforce with technical and leadership skills, thus making them feel valued and that the organization believes in the power of their technical know-how and other human-centric skills, and bots are merely for the assistance of the employees, then it would result in a winning situation for all the stakeholders of the firm.
5. Help employees pick up small projects for RPA application
How an organization proceeds with employee engagement after implementing RPA can make or break the employees’ trust in the organization’s initiatives. Thus, it is needful that employees should be given the liberty to head start with the application of RPA in small projects and then provide their feedback to the managers. This would not only help the employees believe diligently in the system, but it would also help them analyze the wonders of RPA in identifying pain points and fixing the problems efficiently.
6. Acknowledge success and setbacks due to RPA implementation
After implementing RPA, the organization should acknowledge and address its feedback in all honesty. To encourage the employees further, firms can spread the word about the success of RPA through various mediums like webinars, newsletters, congratulatory e-mails, and even internal press releases. This would affirm employees’ faith in RPA and make them more confident in using it for other tasks.
Conclusion
In the ever-evolving world of technology, a prominent saying goes, ‘ Change is the only constant.’ It is easy for organizations not to go the extra mile to win their employees’ faith in RPA. But this action would be harmful to the organization’s growth in the long run, resulting in the loss of RPA and employee turnover rate.
Therefore, firms should adhere to these top six practices that would ensure that they project the attribute of respect towards their employees and help them see RPA as a tool for their assistance.
At Zuci Systems, we have worked on use cases ranging from lending & mortgage, risk & compliance, customer service, report automation, employee on-boarding, service desk automation, and more. With a gamut of experience, we have established a highly structured approach to building and deploying Credit Union RPA services and solutions. We work hand in hand with you to define an RPA roadmap, select the right tools, create a time-boxed PoC, perform governance, set up the team, and test the solution before going live.
I write about fintech, data, and everything around it | Assistant Marketing Manager @ Zuci Systems.
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