Yahoo Finance 2021 prediction: Intelligent automation will remove the need to see HR and IT support in person again
Intelligent automation will “advance to support one in four home workers” over the next year as physical global service desks and in-person support starts to become a thing of the past in a coronavirus-induced digital environment.
According to a study by research and consultancy firm Forrester, 21% of global information workers will work from home most or all of the time by the end of 2021 and intelligent automation will actually evolve to help meet the needs of the greater volume of workers who are consigned to their homes.
In other words, when you need IT support, the current lockdown environment has made businesses rethink whether these background support functions need to have a physical office or space and whether professionals can enhance and support workers at home virtually.
“Work has changed forever. Three times as many information workers will work from home all or most of the time, while many companies will institute hybrid models in which workers come to the office less often,” said Forrester.
“Walking over to the IT department for troubleshooting help, to the HR department for assistance with benefits, or to junior staff for administrative support will be harder. As a result of the pandemic, new forms of automation will support one in four remote workers either directly or indirectly by 2022.
“Direct support in the form of giving a bot to individual workers to support their daily journey will be rare. But indirect support will blossom, as intelligent automation handles employee benefits questions and supports document, customer service, and line-of-business tasks that are often invisible to the home worker.”
A report in September this year from McKinsey found that nearly half of the 800 executives surveyed, noted that their adoption of automation accelerated “moderately,” and roughly 20% reported “significantly increasing” automation during the COVID-19 pandemic.
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