Making use of automation? Watch out for these 5 frequent mistakes

• Feb 6, 2023

Financial institutions looking to accelerate digital transformation are adopting modern-day workload automation and orchestration at an increasing pace and are seeing the benefits: from lower IT staff turnover to less time spent on manual tasks. While automation provides many benefits, it comes with its own set of risks that can be exacerbated if the technology is not properly applied. Many institutions make avoidable mistakes when trying to scale automation, such as trying to replicate human-driven procedures or limiting automation to the IT department. Unfortunately, these blunders can lower the ROI of automation and orchestration across the board. Adopting a new perspective on how work is completed is crucial for a successful rollout, requiring employees to give up some of the control they've had over the routine activities that have traditionally dominated the workday. As a result, employees will have more time on their hands to devote to long-term, strategic initiatives that will give the company a leg up in the marketplace. To get the most out of task automation, it's important to avoid these five common mistakes: Limiting automation efforts solely to the IT department's operations. Many businesses invest in automation tools with solely their IT department in mind, or to address a singular business application. The issue with this is that the organization will not realize its full potential and will not get the most out of its investment. Managers should think about how the entire company could benefit from automation to increase productivity, reduce time spent on manual tasks, and eliminate errors. Most modern-day automation solutions have self-service capabilities that empower non-IT teams to automate critical processes with proper controls. This type of organization-wide automation strategy enables smart scalability without hiring additional staff, freeing up time for staff to concentrate on other important initiatives. Automating tasks by setting them up to look and feel like they were led by humans. Instead of a human following a run guide to navigate through a succession of screens to complete a task, an automation tool may be programmed to carry it out with the help of event-driven dependencies. This means jobs don't have to record every mouse move and keyboard stroke that an employee does during a day; instead, tasks can be broken down into dependencies that must be completed. This strategy will streamline operations and make management a breeze. Little or no documentation is provided when establishing automated workflows. Knowledge silos might emerge if processes aren't formally recorded. This may prevent other stakeholders, such as support teams, from learning from and modeling after existing workflows to enhance them, integrate new data, and better reflect automation priorities. Your automation tool should be used to document workflows and processes as you automate. This ensures institutional knowledge is retained if a team member is on vacation or leaves the organization, and helps future administrators grasp its utility. Enabling notifications of accomplishment Similar to how many manual workflows function, it might be tempting to set up an automation tool so that it alerts everyone in a workflow that the process is complete. However, this can result in an excessive number of notifications, which can distract employees and reduce their productivity. Staff members risk eventually learning to ignore them, leading to missed opportunities. As an alternative, automation systems should be configured to only send a message in the event of a problem or if a process fails to complete. By doing so, staff will recognize when they receive an alert that it requires immediate attention. A failure to educate staff about automation's benefits Many individuals still associate automation with the loss of employment. It's critical that you find ways to lessen the impact of this worry within your organization. If you fail to address this crucial part of communication while implementing an automation solution, you run the risk of turning off prospective automation advocates and, as a result, achieving less than optimal return on investment. Tell workers that the new automation solution will free up their time by handling the activities they dislike doing the most as you introduce it. As a result, they will be able to devote a larger portion of their time to more strategic, creative tasks that make the most of their talents and contribute to the expansion of the company. When having conversations regarding automation with affected teams, it's important to highlight initiatives that haven't gotten the attention they need because of daily checklists. Adopting the right approach to automation Financial institutions such as banks and credit unions stand to gain a great deal from automating their processes, but only if the technology is implemented properly and the steps to success are discussed openly. In order to benefit from the new and improved, an organization must accept it and adjust, which sometimes means giving up control of the routine, time-consuming duties to which its employees have grown accustomed to. Employees will be less compartmentalized and more effective in their tasks if they are given more time to devote to the strategic initiatives that will push the organization into the future. About the Author Todd Weiss is the vice president of product management at SMA Technologies. He is responsible for setting and owning product strategy as well as managing the product roadmap for SMA?s solutions.

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