Introduction
A digital workforce means two things to me:
- It means multi-skilled digital workers, able to guide conversations, extract and structure data, make decisions and conduct execution tasks. These digital workers include virtual agents, digital twins and digital workers.
- It means the organisation of digital workers into a workforce, organised to enable end-to-end processes but also organised such that robotic capacity is optimised 24×7 to create a super-productive and agile workforce.
Intelligent Automation challenges the core
paradigms of scientific management. No longer
does work need to organised around the vagaries
and constraint of human workers. Bots don’t need
hierarchies, spans of control, siloed organisation,
shifts, working days etc. They work tirelessly 24×7
with consistent accuracy, across silos 1
UIPand networks, with minimal supervision. Bots
take the robot out of the human and mobilise
human expertise, freeing people to be great at
being human.
It is tech focused. For its potential to be fully
realised, we should be asking, “where do people fit
alongside bots and systems?” and how should we
organise the modern enterprise to optimise the
benefits of them working seamlessly together.
Savings taken from automation should be invested
into growing new jobs for people, leveraging
attributes such as critical thinking, imagination and
empathy.
