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By Tim Roussel, from the business transformation team at Clarity
RECRUITING in Jersey has become an increasingly difficult task for businesses. With a limited talent pool, companies are struggling to find the right people for their vacancies. At the same time, the demand for housing exceeds what is available, making the import of labour difficult.
Process automation can help solve the crisis
As a technologically advanced jurisdiction, Jersey is in prime position to take advantage of process automation to help overcome these challenges.
Traditional employment strategies revolve around attempting to keep people in the Island and importing a new labour force. The high cost of living and housing make it difficult to attract people to the Island.
By deploying the latest process-automation technology, businesses can unlock a complementary workforce, particularly suitable for admin-intensive processes.
Repetitive, boring tasks are the obvious candidates for process automation. Humans will often find shortcuts and non-standard ways of performing these tasks, which makes them more prone to error. Less interesting tasks can also lead to reduced wellbeing and high staff turnover, affecting a business’s bottom line.
Process automation thrives on these tasks and can seamlessly process them 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, undertaking the work of multiple humans. Process automation is not a threat to jobs; instead it does the work we cannot or do not want to do.
The benefits of process automation
Cost-saving: Automated processes are completed much faster and can be set up quickly. Return on investment is typically measured in weeks or months.
Improved accuracy: When humans are asked to undertake repetitive tasks, they tend to take shortcuts and make mistakes. Computers thrive on this kind of work, repeating tasks with clinical accuracy.
Reducing staff turnover: Moving mundane tasks away from your staff means that they can be given more interesting work, reducing the likelihood of them seeking alternative employment.
Where to start the journey
Start small and don’t try to automate the biggest processes on day one. A complex process may deliver high returns, but it is usually better to prove the concept of process automation with smaller processes.
Identify the first process by looking for one of the following:
Information being repeatedly moved from one place to another.
Members of staff checking values on a screen, or printing information to manually check.
Areas with high staff turnover, indicating boring work.
Processes that require a high degree of accuracy. Although cost-saving is often a driving force for process automation, accuracy may be even more important.
Integrate automation and humans
Your current processes may include a combination of knowledge-based tasks and mundane tasks. This gives the opportunity to integrate process automation and humans in the same workflow.
For example, obtaining due diligence information about a client can be time-consuming and repetitive, and can be easily automated. Using their knowledge and judgment, humans can effectively interpret the results of those automated searches.
For more information, visit seekclarity.com/automation or call 01534 711300.
