A survey by Salesforce delves into automation in the workplace, and its overall reception from employees. Spoilers: it really helps people improve upon their work-life balance.
Automation is something that humanity has been striving towards ever since that one caveman looked at a round-looking stone and thought “ooh, maybe I’ll use that to move my stuff for me”! Well, perhaps our monkey ancestors weren’t as eloquent in their vernacular, but what do I know? When we managed to commoditize basic life tasks, automating them with the endless power that technology and research lends to us, we moved on to more advanced mechanisms. Suddenly, turning on a light switch, making coffee, conducting data analyses, and many other such activities both complex and simple became self-sustaining to quite the extent. It’s the sort of thing that opens up brain space, allowing users of such hardware and software to focus on other tasks. I keep making Terminator references every time news about automation and AI makes the rounds, but I just can’t help myself. It really is eerie to me sometimes just how accurately the technology we’ve created manages to replicate both simple and complex actions that we undergo in daily life.
At any rate, the Salesforce survey tackles AI and automation implementation within the workplace. It attempts to gauge the general perception that employees have towards such technology, and how they believe it affects their day to day tasks. 773 employees from across different fields, all of whom had access to automated systems, were surveyed. 89% of the entire sample population stated that they felt more satisfied with their day to day jobs after the introduction of automated systems to help around. Better yet, 76% of the population agreed that automation had led to their stress levels decreasing. Which is ultimately what we’re working towards, yes? The reduction of stress within employees so they can both do better work, while also maintaining a healthy mental and physical life? 88% of all employees’ state that they implicitly trust automation systems to handle whatever task is assigned with precision, leaving them free to wrap up more complicated tasks.
91% of our professionals stated that they found it easier to find an optimal work-life balance after automated systems took over for them. This makes complete sense to me, since even the most menial of all tasks takes up mental space until it is completed and set aside. That is often what we ignore when assessing workload excess within employees. Sure, the tasks assigned to them may be easy or manageable, but if too many are assigned, the mental weight they carry far outweighs any physical associated toll.
Read next: Over Two Thirds of Millennials View Automation in the Workplace Favorably
Automation is something that humanity has been striving towards ever since that one caveman looked at a round-looking stone and thought “ooh, maybe I’ll use that to move my stuff for me”! Well, perhaps our monkey ancestors weren’t as eloquent in their vernacular, but what do I know? When we managed to commoditize basic life tasks, automating them with the endless power that technology and research lends to us, we moved on to more advanced mechanisms. Suddenly, turning on a light switch, making coffee, conducting data analyses, and many other such activities both complex and simple became self-sustaining to quite the extent. It’s the sort of thing that opens up brain space, allowing users of such hardware and software to focus on other tasks. I keep making Terminator references every time news about automation and AI makes the rounds, but I just can’t help myself. It really is eerie to me sometimes just how accurately the technology we’ve created manages to replicate both simple and complex actions that we undergo in daily life.
At any rate, the Salesforce survey tackles AI and automation implementation within the workplace. It attempts to gauge the general perception that employees have towards such technology, and how they believe it affects their day to day tasks. 773 employees from across different fields, all of whom had access to automated systems, were surveyed. 89% of the entire sample population stated that they felt more satisfied with their day to day jobs after the introduction of automated systems to help around. Better yet, 76% of the population agreed that automation had led to their stress levels decreasing. Which is ultimately what we’re working towards, yes? The reduction of stress within employees so they can both do better work, while also maintaining a healthy mental and physical life? 88% of all employees’ state that they implicitly trust automation systems to handle whatever task is assigned with precision, leaving them free to wrap up more complicated tasks.
91% of our professionals stated that they found it easier to find an optimal work-life balance after automated systems took over for them. This makes complete sense to me, since even the most menial of all tasks takes up mental space until it is completed and set aside. That is often what we ignore when assessing workload excess within employees. Sure, the tasks assigned to them may be easy or manageable, but if too many are assigned, the mental weight they carry far outweighs any physical associated toll.