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Automation is not about task replacement but job reinvention
Leveraging human-AI augmentation
There’s this pervasive narrative around automation. It goes usually that way: one day your manager acquires a new kind of software or robotic system. Since they work better than you at your job, they gradually replace your whole position in the company.
Yet automation never really works like that. It primarily aims at improving repetitive workflows which make employees more productive. Then, as value creation is redistributed within departments, it redefines work structure, reallocating workers to positive-return tasks.
In other words, it’s more about job reinvention than replacement. The latter outcome depends on how companies will leverage their current workforce.
To become an active part of these organizational shifts, here’s how job automation might occur in your company in the coming years.
Task Vs job replacement
Will a robot take your place in your work environment?
When you look at recent automation examples around us, you might find this story more complicated than it seems. And one reason is that automation does not directly affect jobs but rather work processes.
When, for example, banks decided in the ’80s to set up ATMs in their store, they primarily aimed at improving repetitive business processes.
Tasks like money transfer, account consultation, and transaction operation relied on careful human calculations and were thus prone to error. As computing machines easily handle account balance and meticulous protocols, bank managers found in them the tools they need. As a result, they sought to implement ATMs -automated transaction systems- to automate these three tasks.
So they did not primarily intend to automate bank tellers’ jobs. Their goal was first to improve user experience, reduce calculation errors and transaction costs. And it turned out that some tasks weren’t even affected by this wave of automation.
When it comes to advising customers in need of funds, calming their frustration, or imagining and suggesting new banking services, bank agents gained a new central role in their…
