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Automation alleviates employee burnout, increases job fulfillment: Study

Automation alleviates employee burnout, increases job fulfillment: Study
Photo Credit: Pixabay
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Automation can be used to alleviate employee burnout and stress by eliminating repetitive and tedious tasks, according to a new study published on Wednesday.

The survey commissioned by UiPath found that nearly 86% of Indian respondents believe that automation can address burnout and improve job fulfillment, and 85% report that they view employers that use business automation to help support employees and modernize operations more favourably than those that do not. The survey was conducted through an online poll of 6,400 workers from across the world including 500+ from India. 

According to the study, employees are being asked to do more work with less support, with 53% of Indian respondents saying they’ve been asked to take on more tasks at work in the past six months because of layoffs or hiring freezes. As work pile-up takes a toll on employees—more than one in four workers (36%) in India report feelings of burnout—more staffers are leaning on AI tools to provide relief, giving rise to what it calls the Automation Generation, the study said.

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This generation of workers wants these technologies to enrich their work and personal lives and prevent them from feeling like robots themselves, said the study, which noted that 63% of all respondents are already using business automation solutions at work.

When asked what aspects of their job would change with the help of automation tools, Indian respondents said they wanted more time to learn new skills (55%), more creative and/or strategic work (42%), and more flexibility when it comes to their work environment (41%).

They ranked the following tasks as the ones they most wanted automation to assist with: analyzing data (64%); resolving IT/technical issues (60%); and improving customer interactions (57%), which according to the study are mundane and repititive.

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To be sure, Microsoft’s 2023 Work Trend Index report, published on May 10, which polled 31,000 professionals from 31 countries including India, has also shown confidence in AI’s ability to relieve pressure at work. As per the report, business leaders are more eager to use AI to increase employee productivity (31%) rather than to reduce headcount (16%). In addition, it will help employees with necessary but repetitive or mundane tasks (29%) and increasing employee well-being (26%), it said.

“It’s fascinating that people are more excited about AI rescuing them from burnout than they are worried about it eliminating their jobs,” quoted author and organizational psychology professor Adam Grant in a Microsoft blog, adding that it turns out, people are looking for AI to help in almost every aspect of their work.

The report also found 87% of people in creative roles would like to use AI for the creative aspects of their jobs, but there are some caveats here. This percentage includes only people who are “extremely” familiar with AI already. In addition, creative fields were defined as product development, creative/design, or marketing and public relations.

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Already, OpenAI's ChatGPT and other forms of generative AI are easing a lot of human effort, even though experts believe that they could threaten a number of jobs, especially in software programming, media and content, accounting, research, customer service, data entry and more.

Another report by investment bank Goldman Sachs published in March 2023 further suggested that AI could replace the equivalent of 300 million full-time jobs (or automate up to 25% of the work currently being done in the United States and Europe) but also highlighted the possibility of new job opportunities and a surge in productivity.

The UiPath study also sees this as an opportunity. “Disruption in the workplace and macroeconomic factors often mean employees are asked to bear that burden by doing more with less—but it doesn’t need to be that way,” said Brigette McInnis-Day, Chief People Officer at UiPath.

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“Businesses that deploy AI in an open, flexible, and enterprise-ready way are best positioned to attract and retain the types of employees that will help them thrive in an automation-first world. Automation is a key differentiator for companies to attract and retain by empowering employees and driving engagement,” McInnis-Day added.


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