HR Archives - Page 2 of 2

Keeping your best staff in the new hybrid workforce

April 8, 2022March 16, 2021 by Ian Gosling

With 1 in 4 of the British workforce considering a career change in 2021 firms are worried. Employees are fed up with solely working from home and whilst the hybrid workforce is set to be the new now for most organisations, it may not be enough.

Large corporates such as BT have announced post-pandemic proposals to have a mix of onsite and remote working and a Lloyds Banking Group staff survey found that nearly 80% wanted to work at home for at least three days a week. Small and medium companies will probably follow suit – in part responding to their employees wishes. But more needs to be done to retain good staff. Getting the balance right is going to be key.

A 2020 study showed 80% of managers are concerned about retaining valued employees. Broken down over half (47%) worry about how much staff morale has suffered in the past year and how heavier workloads are leading to burnout. Some are anxious that the shift in working patterns has meant their people have simply lost interest in working for the company.

There’s no argument that small and medium companies in particular value their hard working staff with many firms having a family-like regard for their teams. But to keep employees happy you have to take away the heavy workloads, give them space for creative thinking and problem solving and demonstrate a trust in them. As ever, technology and more specifically automation is going to be the key to succeed in this new hybrid work model.

“No code” platforms like AUTTO make automating key business processes and documents easy. These “time-rich, imagination-poor” but nonetheless important daily tasks of every company will free up staff time – our customers tell us about 75%. What better way of empowering staff than by replacing the hours they take laboriously cutting and pasting into a spreadsheet or sending out endless emails to free them up to do something far more valuable? From a productivity perspective, accuracy improves as the human element is removed from routine documents such as order processing, contracts, T&Cs and licenses and replaced with automation.

Showing trust and respect in their abilities will further empower your staff. Give THEM the automations to identify and create – after all they are at the coal face of your business and know which processes need changing. With AUTTO anyone can automate in a few hours with our simple no-code platform. No technical expertise required. You can take any of your unique business processes, easily learn the system and, like Lego building blocks, automate them.

The future world of work is upon us all but with it comes new challenges –finding more creative ways to retain the best staff at the same time boosting business productivity is going to be critical. Automation is set to play a pivotal role in this new now.

New immigration policies – a case for automation.

April 11, 2022April 18, 2020 by Ian Gosling

New UK immigration policies are under fire as businesses and pundits alike predict the effects of greatly reduced access to unskilled labour. The new points-based immigration system is designed to cut the number of low-skilled migrants entering the UK while making it easier for highly-skilled workers to migrate.

Low unemployment rates challenge businesses
According to the office of National Statistics, the UK unemployment rate of 3.8 per cent is currently at its lowest since the mid-1970s, adding to the impending shortage of low-skilled workers. Despite this high rate of employment, Britain suffers from poor productivity growth. Some economists believe that a ready supply of cheap foreign labour is to blame by discouraging companies from investing in technology.

Investing in automation
Home secretary Priti Patel defended the UK government’s post-Brexit immigration regime, saying: “If we invest in people, including the right investment in terms of new technology and skills, more people would be able to work in many sectors.”

Businesses now have to think about creative ways to fill the gaps as technology and business process automation comes to the fore. The UK immigration plan states: “Businesses will need to adapt and adjust to the end of free movement … It is important that employers move away from a reliance on the UK’s immigration system as an alternative to investment in staff retention, productivity, and wider investment in technology and automation.”

The message is clear
Businesses will be under increased pressure to automate routine processes, allowing highly-skilled workers the time to engage in work that needs specialised knowledge, skill or the human touch.

According to Andy Haldane, Chief Economist at the Bank of England: “The UK’s low automation adoption is part of our lagging productivity, especially for SMEs, which is preventing a much-needed rise in economic growth, wages and living standards. Automation could bring about a new focus on better, more creative jobs and shorter working hours,” he said.

This assertion is prompting some economists to question if one of the goals of the UK’s new immigration policy is to push business to fix the productivity problem addressed in the government publication: Automation and the future of work.

Investing in R&D
To fulfil the need for more technology, the UK government has committed to increasing investment in research and development (R&D) in the UK from the current 1.7% of GDP to 2.4% by 2027, with a longer-term goal of 3%, but Automation and the future of work warns that the UK’s current immigration policy would limit the country’s ability to attract the right skills for automation and robotics. It states that unless the UK government and businesses are able to create a pipeline of UK researchers and workers who can support the domestic automation industry, it will still be necessary to recruit from overseas.

The current adoption rate of automation technology among small and medium-sized enterprises is only 4%, compared with 28% in large businesses. The report noted that SMEs generally lack management experience and digital skills, making it unlikely they will adopt disruptive technology.

No-code automation could provide the solution
But what about no-code automation technology? By reframing automation away from resource-intensive technology, such as AI and IOT, no-code technology makes automation accessible to all organisations, no matter what the size.

Easily accessible online technology, such as AUTTO can provide an alternative to overly complicated, expensive solutions such as AI. Online automation solutions can be set up to automate day-to-day business processes within an hour, giving staff time to prioritise tasks that provide the products and the service that can transform a business.

Empowering remote workers.

April 11, 2022April 1, 2020 by Ian Gosling

A strategy for the present and the future.

With lockdown official, organisations across the country are scrambling to adjust to a workforce that needs to work from home. Managing remote staff can be challenging, but it also promises an opportunity to continue to serve customers while keeping staff employed and, ultimately, staying in business.

It’s easy to find advice for remote employees, instructing them how to be productive and inspired while working from home, but not much written for the employer. In addition to addressing an immediate need, a solid remote working strategy can not only help your employees, it could strengthen your business for the long term.

So how do you provide the best experience to empower remote workers?

People first. A good work-from-home plan considers the wellbeing of employees. Do they have the tools they need? Are they empowered to do their jobs and address the issues that customers may have? Can you support them with health and safety advice? Is technology in place that can ease the burden faced by a workforce that suddenly has to adjust to different ways of working? Answer these concerns and you will have a solid strategy for managing and enabling a remote workforce.

Communication and collaboration. Remote working does not mean that staff are invisible, though, some employees may feel isolated. Address this by keeping staff up-to-date on new developments that may affect them and establish ways of working and that enables collaboration and encourages communication between team members.

The right environment. Create a supportive environment that allows staff to feel confident and supported by providing the information and tools they need to succeed. Simple-to-use, intuitive technology is an important part of this but time also needs to be made to allow staff the opportunity to come to grips with new technology and new ways of working.

Trust. Because remote employees aren’t sitting in an office, it’s sometimes easy to assume that they are not working. Often, the opposite is true. Without separation between work and home, remote employees often work longer hours than office-based employees. This type of pressure can add unnecessary anxiety and reduce productivity. Set clear work hours and encourage employees to have a healthy work-life balance.

The right technology: Encourage productivity and seamless business operation as employees move away from an office environment with intuitive and easy to use tools that don’t need lengthy training or additional skills. This automation needs to be appropriate, useful and easy to deploy. No-code automation is a vital part of this need.

With self-isolation and lockdown the new norm, COVID-19 is altering society for the present but most likely for the future, too. As businesses shift to remote working they are setting a foundation and pattern for the way we work in the future.

Business gets personal.

April 11, 2022January 8, 2020 by Ian Gosling

Planning for the next decade.

The beginning of a new year is one of those occasions when humanity collectively pauses and reflects. This past decade has seen such rapid adoption of new technology that it’s not unreasonable to claim that the past 10 years could be the most significant since our ancestors started to record history. Nowhere has this impact been greater than for small and medium enterprises (SMEs).

Technology has leveled the playing field

The rise of mobile platforms and B2B tools has leveled the playing field, making it possible for startups with limited resources to compete with their larger competitors and work as equals with large corporate clients.

Online conferencing shrinks the world

To work internationally companies no longer need satellite offices in different cities. Online tools make it easy to jump on a quick video call with a customer in Paris or the US or a colleague working from home in the same city.

Customer experience is king

Affordable tools provide the data analysis businesses need to improve customer experience (CX) and increase revenue and profits. Organisations and individual staff members can now make decisions based on real data, rather than on assumptions or trial and error.

Empowered employees improve the workplace

Online communities now make it easier for people to research the culture of a prospective employer, to compare workplace stories with employees in other companies and to get the support they need with online tools. An empowered workforce has great potential to create a better, more productive workplace.

What’s next? The decade ahead

So what’s in store for the next decade? As the pace of innovation continues to soar, we’re already beginning to see adoption of new technology that could have even greater impact on the next 10 years. There seems to be a shift, though, away from technology for technology’s sake towards the end result: how innovation can help organisations focus on greater business goals. Instead of asking: ‘What can the technology do,’ people are asking ‘Why do I need this technology? What can it do for me?’

Virtual and augmented begins to impact business

Over the past decade personalised experience has inched its way into our online lives. Smartphones are the norm. In fact, it’s rare to find someone who doesn’t carry one of these small personalised computers in their pocket, tracking their steps, managing their calendars and connecting them to the people in their lives at all times.

Virtual reality (VR) takes this personal experience a step further, often using mobile technology, to allow users to step into their own digital world. Augmented reality connects users’ real-world environment to this virtual reality.

This all sounds like an elaborate form of entertainment but we’re already beginning to see the impact on business in training scenarios, prototyping and design and customer service. Innovation that further links VR to practical applications could be a big growth sector for this decade.

Artificial intelligence and machine learning shifts

Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (MI) have the potential to radically transform business in the next decade. However, this will be the decade where the hype is separated from reality. For example, radical medical discoveries enabled by AI will only be as transformative as the practical day-to-day application of treatment available. Self-driving cars are trending in the media, but an upswell of public opinion could shift this innovation towards a different goal, for example, creating low-cost, zero emissions vehicles.

The internet of things could combine with AI

From cars to watches, to smart homes, the internet of things (IoT) is everywhere. Gartner predicts that 20.4 billion IoT devices will exist this year. This number is expected to increase exponentially over the coming decade. Futurists are predicting a whole new boom in this area: the artificial intelligence of things, combining AI with IoT.

To benefit from these opportunities businesses will be challenged to develop strategies to address possible barriers such as costs, security concerns and new legislation due to changes in political climate.

Meeting the expectations of empowered employees

The next generation of workers are digital natives in every sense. Gen Z, often called Centennials, have been exposed to technology from a very young age. They tend to be technologically proficient with an expectation for high-quality content at all times. They may have less tolerance for uninteresting or stressful jobs and will expect a better life-work balance. This will bring new challenges for leaders in the workplace.

Micro-automation fills the gap

So how can SMEs navigate the minefield of cost vs resource vs need?

Many of the barriers of implementation of large-scale transformation can be addressed with micro-automation. By reframing automation, away from resource intensive technology, such as AI and IOT, micro-automation makes automation accessible to all organisations, no matter what the size.

With online automation solutions, such as AUTTO, SMEs can automate day-to-day business processes within an hour. Routine tasks that may seem simple but in reality cost a lot in time and resource can all be automated, with no technical expertise needed. Tasks such as HR onboarding, approval processes, creating and signing contracts and NDA’s and regulatory compliance processes can easily be automated, giving staff time to prioritise tasks that provide the products and the service that can transform a business.

Using simple automation in this way can revolutionise working practices.

Keeping your best staff in the new hybrid workforce

New immigration policies – a case for automation.

Empowering remote workers.

A strategy for the present and the future.

Business gets personal.

Planning for the next decade.

An Intro To AUTTO

How to Automate a Complex Process without Writing a Line of Code

Hi there,

AUTTO is a no-code, business and document automation platform. No-code means you can build tailor-made automated processes without having to be a developer.

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