How Much to Automate Amid Rising National Labor Shortage?

The U.S. employment statistics reached a record high last year but were not attractive. The U.S Chamber of Commerce has reported that if all unemployed Americans were absorbed in the available jobs, the country would still have approximately 5.4 million job opportunities. The current national labor crisis can be attributed to various factors and was especially accelerated by a record employee turnover experienced in 2021. Can technology solve this crisis? How much to automate to address the glaring problem?

There are multiple factors at stake in the economy and businesses right now that each organization needs to make strategic decisions amid tight budgets. One thing is clear, increased labor shortage and high wages in trying to attract new skilled employees and reduce turnover have prompted many organizations to accelerate automation. Adopting smarter software and robotic technology is taking shape swiftly across industries. It is unclear whether and how much automation will address the problem permanently, but the trend is promising.

Labor Shortage Crisis 

An overview of any industry from the outside might give you the wrong impression that everything is going normal. However, a critical insight behind the scenes reveals the glaring problem. 

The hospitality industry, for instance, experienced a 6.6% turnover in September 2021. This is just the tip of the iceberg. The manufacturing industry is experiencing worse turnover levels. Currently, corporates are struggling to fill vacant positions and maintain a competitive advantage. 

Industries globally lost millions of employees during the COVID-19 pandemic. Many people who left the labor market during this period decided to take early retirement. Then followed the great resignation and more challenges for businesses, including:

• Budgetary limitations
• Morphing job descriptions
• Stiff competition for tech talent
• Unwillingness to do menial tasks
• Outsourced service providers and the flexibility they offer candidates
• Natural attrition due to moves and retirements

Why Should Businesses Automate?

The demand for business automation emerged out of temporary necessity due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Organizations worldwide had to minimize physical human interactions to comply with new public health guidelines. Leveraging technology to provide online services was the only option to facilitate operations for many companies. Nonetheless, as businesses struggle to return to pre-pandemic operations, many CEOs and business owners consider automation a permanent solution to the current labor shortage. But, the question of how much to automate is still unanswered.

CEOs and managers aren’t the only ones feeling the burden of a labor shortage—employees and other business stakeholders too. They are bombarded with multiple duties in trying to balance the situation.

Embracing technologies that optimize day-to-day operations can relieve employees’ strenuous responsibilities while boosting their engagement in critical tasks. For example, automating repeated tasks helps managers save time for core functions that require consistent human input. 

Many organizations have increased interest in digitizing workflow, but the deployment rate is still demanding. This implies an untapped opportunity for businesses to embrace technology and impact workers with the skills necessary for automation. There has already been a positive reception of automation, workplace analytics, Business intelligence (BI), artificial intelligence, machine learning support, and workflow management software among leading organizations.   

What to Focus On During Automation

In the ongoing digital transition and process automation, employees expect a flawless onboarding experience to equip them with the skills they need to succeed in the new operations, even as businesses consider how much to automate. Hence, before embarking on the automation journey, ensure all stakeholders are familiar with essential technological elements such as:

• Artificial Intelligence (AI). AI refers to implementing a software/hardware system that assesses functionality against predetermined criteria for enhancing improvement.

• Machine Learning (ML). This is an aspect of AI specializing in building systems that improve performance in line with the data they consume. 

• Robotic Process Automation (RPA). RPA is a type of business process automation technology that enhances building, deploying, and managing software robots that imitate human functionality in software and digital systems.

Automated Reporting

Even as businesses struggle to hire new employees to fill vacant positions, there is a need to address the problem permanently in the future. To prevent more problems, companies must solve immediate issues, such as facilitating customer-centric interactions. That is why automated reporting is a key step in determining how much to automate for business efficiency. 

Automated reporting focuses on delivering users relevant information in a timely fashion. It’s about creating efficiency in business areas requiring minimal human input and providing more time and space to allocate human insight where needed. 

Automated reports eliminate conventional communication methods since they depend on business reporting software that utilizes BI, drag-and-drop interface, predictive analytics, and other smart features.

You can generate automated reports at fixed, regular intervals to enhance efficiency. Creating predictive reporting allows employees to focus on important activities and understand when to view reports without consulting. Many organizations utilize automated reporting to ship backlogs that other organizations are still struggling to deal with. 

Why Automate Reporting?

Marketing reports are an essential communication element that informs your clients of your organization’s effectiveness and the value they get. To facilitate such necessary information consistently, you must keep track of social media campaigns, website data, and SEO strategies. 

The current labor crisis limits many companies’ ability to perform all these duties and remain competitive. Managing data is quickly becoming a burden, while tight budgets hinder managers from hiring labor to perform these activities efficiently. In addition, manual tracking, assembling, and presenting hundreds of KPIs to clients consistently is also becoming a challenge. That is why automated reporting is the solution for businesses. 

Here are some benefits of automated reporting:

Accessibility, Transparency, and Productivity

Automated reports allow everybody in an organization to receive the necessary performance tools in their specific roles while utilizing accurate, strong, and reliable shared visualization. 

Cost and Time Efficiency

When you automate reporting, you save the cost of hiring more employees while reducing the time spent tracking, updating, and reviewing information in the system. Naturally, availing report to your teams in time empowers them to put more effort into more creative and strategic activities. 

Real-time Decision Making

Automated Reports minimize the chances of inaccurate data in visual KPIs. Accurate information allows real-time decision-making at all levels of the organization. Users can efficiently leverage data at any management level to make real-time collaborative decisions. 

Learn How Much to Automate from Experts

Businesses across industries are struggling to deal with the effects of the pandemic and employee turnover. Replacing employees in the current strained budget is still a concern for many CEO. However, automated reporting has proven to be a perfect solution for businesses. 

If you’re still not sure how much to automate for your business to improve efficiency, you’re not alone. Automated reporting is an essential element in dealing with the current crisis. Power BI Reporting Scheduler by ChristianSteven software can help you implement automated reporting through automated in-the-moment data reports.