In an article entitled Why You Should Automate Parts of Your Job to Save It, Michael Schrage argues that the modern employee is more technologically capable than ever before and that individual productivity enhancements should come as a result. Rather than a top-down management decree that “all employees shall now use System X,” he suggets that employees can take a look at their day-to-day work and seek to make their own lives easier. As I mentioned in What do Netflix and Aspirin have in common?, value comes from solving a problem; employees should look to automate their own repetitive tasks so they can focus more time on important activities.
Not even a decade ago, organizations had systems analysts design and impose norms demanding total employee compliance. Technology was as much an enforcement tool as a process platform. A decade hence, dynamic optimization will be an ongoing negotiation between the local expertise of the digitally-deviced worker and the analytic prowess of the centralizing system. Of course there will be top-down diktats but a growing number of them will come from the tricks, shortcuts, and hacks workers use to make themselves more efficient.
There are, of course, risks that can arise from individuals utilizing their own solutions. If each individual is paying a nominal fee for a solution developed elsewhere, the firm may not realize economies of scale. The official process might be different from what each employee actually does on a day-to-day basis. New team members could be disadvantaged when attempting the same task as veterans who have automated pieces of it. A department’s technology may become fragmented and could come to rely on certain individuals and their secret methods. The author suggests that through water cooler conversation, everyone’s slight improvements will be shared and a new norm will be established, but without a formal look at the automation improvements there is no guarantee of open communication.
Risks aside, there are several benefits of task automation. Employees have more time available to focus on large projects rather than menial, repetitive tasks. Team members are given increased responsibility and power to affect their own workday, one of the largest influences on happiness and productivity. The firm breaks away from their old-fashioned perspective and adopts a problem-solving culture.
What is the most important thing you do on your job? What portion of that could be turned into an app that anyone in your organization could effectively use? What portion of that could be automated and fed directly into the larger system with only minimal review by you? What’s the least valuable but essential part of your job? Why aren’t you figuring out ways to automate it on your iPad or Android?
People with the best answers will likely discover they also have the best job security.
Sources:
Why You Should Automate Parts of Your Job to Save It – Michael Schrage on Harvard Business Review
