Manual Tasks Are a Time Killer – Why Are We So Resistant to Change?

From checking out at the supermarket and buying everything from insurance to holidays, to better search results and manning home appliances at the touch of a button, when it comes to our personal lives, we are all for technological advancements helping us. 

And while perhaps some human intervention is welcome (especially when it comes to supermarkets and ‘unexpected items’), we’ve embraced these technological changes to help make our busy personal lives a bit easier.

However, when it comes to our professional lives, things are quite different. Despite being told that AI isn’t, in fact, coming for our jobs, that automation and digital advancements could provide procurement with a real boost, and that advances may even enhance the human factor, people continue to push back on organisations putting these changes in place. 

Understanding the why of this is key to successful digitisation programs, and may actually be more critical than assessing which processes can be automated. The opportunities for automation will be outlined in the second half of this series, but first it’s important to understand the key areas of resistance and what organisations can do to help allay fears and smooth the transition. 

We’ve detailed 5 key factors below.

1. Fear of Change

Metathesiophobia – the fear of change, linked to a desire to keep life in a comfortable and consistent place.

Technological advancement has increased the pace of change in the past half century, which inevitably has led to a less consistent and, for many people, comfortable life. In an organisational setting, this fear of change (or alternatively, the fear of the unknown) means people will be more inclined to resist change if they see potential negative implications for their roles.

When it comes to automation of procurement processes, even with the best of intentions and evidence to suggest professional lives will be enhanced by technology, there will still be lingering concerns that things may not work out for the best.

2. Lack of Involvement

We’ve all been in a situation where a new system or process is introduced by an external team or senior leaders with great fanfare. Unfortunately, we can all name numerous occasions where this new way of working has been put together without consultation with those who will work with it on a daily basis.

This certainly isn’t to say that these changes will always have negative consequences, more the perception of such from those involved. Change is necessary for organisations to survive, grow and thrive in a complex environment and, sometimes, giving every stakeholder a say or involving a wider audience just isn’t possible.

But, without the opportunity to voice opinions or concerns, or provide feedback on implementation plans or testing, many people will disengage from the process just at the point where the organisation needs them to assist. It is a sign of good leadership of being conscious of this impact and accounting for it in the planning process, whereas not getting this input could potentially doom a project before it even gets off the ground.

3. Poor Implementation and Integration

The lack of engagement described above frequently goes hand-in-hand with a poor implementation or integration process. While new technology and automation can make our lives in procurement easier, it can all be undermined by an implementation plan that isn’t well thought out and doesn’t consider all the possible consequences, it may actually fail not only to solve existing problems, but also create whole new ones.

Organisations should consider whether or not this new technology will make jobs more efficient, or remove tedious manual tasks and free up key resources. Or does it clash with existing systems, failing to interact in the planned manner, leaving users with tasks that are more complicated and time consuming, or finding ways of working around it?
People are key to any implementation and they must feel included and valued in the process to provide the buy-in needed to make it a success.

4. Is Big Brother Watching?

The notion that Big Brother is always watching is nothing unusual in an organisational setting. From Frederick Winslow Taylor’s ‘Time and Motion’ studies in the 1880s, to IT logs of time spent on tasks (or on the internet…), employees will always have the view that they are being watched and measured based on how efficiently and effectively they are carrying out their jobs.

Call Centres are a good example of a workplace where employees are graded based on the number of calls made or customers spoken to, and not necessarily on the quality of the interaction. With automation and AI now being used more, employers have an even greater volume of data monitoring employees’ behaviours, work patterns and even how long they spend in the bathroom.

For many people, this is a prime reason to push back and resist change and digitisation in the workplace. Though technology might provide positive benefits, there is also a chance they are being used to monitor and track people, and, in a sense, dehumanise them. 

It is one of the most challenging aspects of technological advancement. However, it should be noted that this is less about the technology itself, and more about how people and/or leaders choose to use it.

5. Lack of Understanding of Benefits

For all the positives on how automation and digital technologies can benefit organisations, much of the pervading feelings across media and social media are negative. The belief that AI is coming to take jobs away from people and that human interaction in the workplace is being steadily degraded just goes to increase the fear factor around it.

What isn’t highlighted enough are the actual, tangible benefits of automation and digitisation and getting towards that sweet spot of human and technological interaction. Amongst these benefits in procurement are:

• A reduction in time consuming, manual tasks on a daily or weekly basis.
• More time to carry out strategic tasks, increasing the level of human interactions with key stakeholders and suppliers.
• Better relationships with suppliers with up to date information sharing, faster processes and on-time payment.

These are just a small selection of the positive benefits which should, if the technology is used well, leave us all with a more rewarding and enjoyable job.

What Organisations Need to Do

If these are the potential pitfalls, then what can organisations do to avoid them and make sure they reduce, if not mitigate completely, the concerns of their employees. Some key factors to consider are:

• Communication: make all stakeholders aware of the changes well in advance, detailing how job roles will change and offering the opportunity for feedback and questions throughout the process.
• Involvement: provide the same stakeholders with the chance to be part of any working groups assessing the new technologies and how they will be implemented. 
• Establishing Boundaries: making it clear from the outset what the technology is intended to do, what it has been brought into the organisation to change or help with, and what it won’t be used for (i.e. monitoring employees).
• Review and Revise Job Roles: so people don’t think they are being replaced, ensure that any changes to their daily roles are called out in new job descriptions, that also expand on the tasks that they will be able to carry out instead.

There is no certainty that, even if all of these factors are taken into account, that it will remove all resistance to the change. However, it will leave the organisation in a better position to implement the automation and digitisation processes in procurement that can make a real difference.

Still feeling resistant to change and the march of procurement automation? If you need more convincing, make sure you come back to read the second part of this series on the tasks that technology can help you with.