Mundane, boring work is real – but it is slowly becoming a thing of the past as offices and other workplaces are incorporating artificial intelligence tools to automate the worst parts of certain jobs. (Excel, anyone?) Monday.com, a visual tool that simplifies the way teams work, released a report on the state of automation and Artificial Intelligence that surveyed 1,000 employed Americans on their thoughts about automating workplace tasks.
The results: instead of fearing automation, Americans are craving it – especially to apply AI administrative work
A majority of the workforce (54%) believes they would save over five hours from tools that automate tasks.
- Over 32% would choose to eliminate repetitive administrative tasks if they could improve one thing about work.
- Over 70% of those surveyed would love if automation were implemented for routine tasks like calendar invites and data entry.
- 38% of workers feel they could save up to five hours each week if they had tools to assist in automated repetitive tasks
- 16% estimate they could save 10 or more hours per week with automation
Workers find that distraction is everywhere, especially in the form of communication.
- 41% are distracted by emails, Slack and other notifications
- 20% are swamped with email overload
With more focus on productivity and output – like the dull dread of data entry – workers are feeling uncreative and lack the opportunity to do meaningful work.
- 30% feel less creative than they used to be
- 28% want to improve time for creativity and focus at work
- An overwhelming 63% of respondents feel they are missing an opportunity to show their best work.
Matthew Burns, Head of US Customer Success at monday.com, says that AI tools have become increasingly common in the last 10 years, and especially in the last five.
“It’s becoming so widespread for any of these types of tools that increase your efficiency and help reduce burnout,” he said. “I can’t think of a major corporation that doesn’t use something like it – depending on, of course, their favorite flavor of it. Every major company that I’ve worked with… they’re all trying to figure out how can they automate and help with making people’s jobs easier and simpler.”
Automation is even becoming something that job-seekers look for as part of the package.
“It’s becoming part of a benefit,” Burns said. “If you go out there looking the marketplace, you can see people talking about, What systems are you using to automate your workflows?”
People can deal with some amount of tedious work, he said. But automation gives them comfort in knowing that that’s not the only thing they’ll be expected to do.
“You know, the Millennials really want to know that they’re going to be utilized in a variety of ways,” he said. “They want to be able to be creative. Some people don’t even mind the mundane tasks, but they want to know that they’re supported in that. They don’t want to just feel like another cog in the wheel, and when these tools execute well, they do give people a lot more empowerment.”
This article was originally published on The Ladders.
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