The Robots are Here: Good news – for employees?
While robots which vacuum the carpet, mow the lawn or deliver lunch are cute time savers, their possible entry into the workplace can be scary. Employees who have spent years performing a routine task can be threatened by the idea of technology taking over their job. People in customer facing roles (cashiers, bank tellers, check-in agents) may argue that use of self service or remote interfaces ‘dehumanizes’ the company.
Business leaders today know they must digitalize to compete, survive and grow in today’s world. However success is often contingent on employee support. A recent Forbes study of 2000 global companies found that 80% considered their digitalization effort a failure – due to lack of management support or employee adoption. By investing the resources and time needed to gain employee commitment, companies can avoid the disappointment, cost and lost opportunity that comes with a failed project.
Technology: Greater Employee Freedom and Value
Gaining support starts with understanding why and how technology can enhance the employees’ work life. This can be greater ease of completing projects, the ability to work from home occasionally or opportunities to learn new skills, possibly leading to higher salaries.
In many companies, use of technology frees people from performing mundane tasks such as data entry or manual production line work. They are then able to ‘move up the chain’ so their contributions are valued more highly. Consider the accountant who used to simply log expenses and transactions into the bookkeeping system. By encouraging clients to electronically transmit and store this data, he or she now has time to analyze expense patterns and provide the client with valuable advice on ways to reduce expenses.
In the Nordic, the high cost and limited availability of employees, combined with the need for competitive growth, has led to wide-spread use of technology from self-service checkin to online banking services. However, digitalization remains a challenge for many traditional, retail and professional service businesses.
For success, digital initiative needs to:
- Involve and engage managers and employees in discussions and workshops to understand the positive impacts of digitalization
- Provide training or resources for employees to learn the new skills required for future success
- Be integrated into all employee development and reward programs
- Demonstrate ways in which employees can benefit from technology
Ultimately, digitalization, whether it is through introduction of robotics or new systems to streamline operations, will lead to more interesting work, greater employee engagement and company value.
Nordic Supermarket Leverages Digitalization to Increase Revenue and Employee Satisfaction
With new online competition, success in the retail grocery market is increasingly challenging. When tasked with implementation of technology to reduce the cost and increase efficiency of customer checkout, one Nordic supermarket leadership team took a creative approach.
As they piloted new self-serve checkout stations, they found customers were both unsure of how to use the kiosks to scan and pay and concerned that adoption would cause the local cashiers to lose their job. To address these issues, a few cashiers were trained to help customers use the kiosks while welcoming back customers and encouraging shoppers to visit again for specials.
This led to faster checkouts via the kiosks and more return visits, while the employees found they enjoyed the customer interaction. Therefore, the store manager created a new training program for employees to gain indepth knowledge in a particular product area. They were then assigned departments (meat, produce, household items) of the store in which they would be available to answer customer questions, provide advice or guide shoppers to new or promotional items.
The result was higher store revenues, increased customer loyalty and differentiation as ‘the store where I like to shop’. However, the real benefit was to the employees who were freed from repetitively scanning items, accepting payments and offering receipts to delivering real value to customers and their company.
Summary
Technology, whether robotics, self service kiosks, artificial intelligence and online systems are coming in all industries. By committing to digitalization, then facilitating employee adoption and training in new skills, business leaders can increase their company’s results, while enhancing employee satisfaction and value.