The personnel department, or HR for short, is perceived differently today. It is now about more than just paperwork, administrative tasks, banal routine work and petty disputes. HR is becoming a strategic partner that contributes to positive business results. This is also accompanied by the transformation from a cost center to a profit center.

HR leaders are finding that strategic expectations are increasing. In the 2019 Gartner Future of HR study, building critical capabilities for the organization and improving the employee experience are named as two of the top three priorities.

Successful HR leaders recognize the benefits of a digital workforce that works closely with the human workforce to increase productivity and innovation.

Digital employees are more than just simple chatbots or software tools. They work like virtual employees, combining artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), RPA and analytics to automate business functions end-to-end.

This means that they can take over an entire process without supervision, such as onboarding new employees or searching for new applicants on LinkedIn. This gives employees more time to focus on the human side of HR. In addition, the use of bots significantly lowers operating costs, reduces the risk of errors and helps to ensure compliance with legal regulations.

AUTOMATION DRIVES THE DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION

The following example of a medical technology manufacturer is a good illustration of the impact of the digital workforce.

The company has decided to use bots to automate key HR functions: Unifying contract data, responding to frequent in-person requests and generating summary reports. Given its success, automation has been extended to other business functions such as finance, procurement, IT and R&D.

Within just a few months, 65,000 employees were able to use automation to complete their tasks. 50 employees took care of more value-adding tasks related to the strategic transformation.

FREEDOM TO ACHIEVE MORE

A digital workforce gives people the freedom and opportunity to do things that a bot can't, like being creative and innovative. A good digital workforce platform combines RPA, cognitive capabilities and embedded intelligent analytics to automate complete tasks. It relieves your employees of monotonous, repetitive processes.

Per Stritich, Vice President DACH Automation Anywhere © Automation Anywhere

The author: Per Stritich is Vice President DACH at Automation Anywhere.