Employees spend over 3 hours a day on easily automatable tasks: Study

New Delhi: Office workers are ready to welcome automation of repetitive digital tasks, as on an average employees spend more than three hours a day on mundane computer tasks which are not part of their primary job and are ripe for human error, a survey said on Tuesday.

According to a global study commissioned by Automation Anywhere, in India, out of 1,000 participants surveyed, 88 per cent believe humans should not be carrying out repetitive administrative tasks if they can be automated. The research by the robotic process automation player noted that nearly half of workers surveyed found digital administration boring and a poor use of their skills, while majority of respondents said it gets in the way of doing their main job and reduces their overall productivity.

With an 8-hour workday being the global norm, according to the survey, the average employee loses 60 hours per month to easily automatable tasks. By deploying a digital workforce and automating these repetitive tasks, employees could be given back a quarter of their annual work time (4.5 months) to focus on more meaningful work, boosting productivity and overall business value. At the very top of the "hated task" heap is general data entry – manually inputting data into a computer or other devices, followed closely by managing e-mail traffic and filing digital documents – such as documents, spreadsheets, images or PDFs - into the correct digital folder.

Compiling reports from IT and software systems and invoice management round out the top five most hated tasks, the survey noted. "Close to 80 per cent of the participants in India believe that admin work is an obstacle for them to do their main job," said Milan Sheth, Executive Vice President India, Middle East & Africa, Automation Anywhere. Sheth further said "workers can focus on higher value tasks if the mundane repetitive tasks can be automated".

As per the report, more than 95 per cent of participants in India are open to the idea of working alongside digital co-workers/software bots. Besides, 55 per cent of respondents said they would consider leaving a job if this manual administrative load became too high, while 85 per cent would be attracted to work at a company that invested in automation to reduce repetitive digital administration tasks.

Automation Anywhere commissioned independent research group OnePoll to conduct 10,500 interviews with office workers in 11 countries around the world in 2019. Respondents represented a variety of demographic groups, job levels, industry sectors and company sizes.