Study Finds RPA Boosts Employee Engagement and Satisfaction Across Businesses

However, business leaders must overcome the psychological impact of RPA on their workforce.

The majority of organisations believe that RPA is enabling employees to experience more human interaction;  some say it’s even helping workers enjoy their work more, by enabling them to focus on more creative tasks, according to research by Forrester Consulting, commissioned by UiPath.

According to the study, The Impact of RPA on Employee Experience, 92% of people have admitted to seeing results of faster efficiency; 86% of people believe that RPA has increased efficiency and 66% of people believe RPA restructures existing work, enabling employees to have more human interactions.

“Employees today struggle to perform under the weight of mind-numbing, repetitive work. They’re influenced by their consumer experiences and want similar experiences in their jobs,” said Bobby Patrick, chief marketing officer at UiPath. “With the rise of automation tools, many fear a dystopian view – that solutions like RPA will replace jobs and human workers will be left out of favour. As our study finds, the reality is that RPA allows employees to engage in richer interactions with others, perform work that requires more brain power, and make fewer mistakes.”

However, the study also found that businesses have concerns around employee experience as they grapple with automation and RPA. Firms are struggling to scale their RPA solutions due to the lack of trained personnel and resources to support and use the technology. In fact, 93% of those surveyed said they struggle to understand the different deployment options available to them.

Additionally, leaders must overcome the psychological impact of RPA on their workforce. Communication and collaboration between the business and workers, and well-designed change management programs, are crucial.

UiPath recommends that organisations create an RPA centre of excellence at the onset deployment, and utilise a human-centric change management strategy.