Why Manual Tasks Are Hazardous to You, Your Business and Employees 

You’ve been thinking about automating your tasks and have heard how it can improve overall business productivity, reduce costs and save you some time to focus on more important tasks. You’ve also probably heard how automation is replacing certain job functions, i.e bookkeeping. But did you know that on average, almost 60% of employees are leaving their organization due to repetitive, mundane manual tasks?  

This is the current reality of the workplace in a pandemic. Processes have changed, technology functions are fast replacing human labor and employees are looking for environments that guarantee digital empathy.  

What matters? Creating a business model that adapts to digital disruption, drives high levels of agility and productivity, and empowers your team to work diligently and effectively – all without compromising information and security compliance. Smart compliance ensures intelligent information governance, streamlined workflows, and automation. Chances are your competitors are leveraging this framework and working towards increasing efficiency for business success.  

6 Ways Manual Tasks are Costing Your Business Success  

Despite all the new technologies at our disposal, many organizations still rely on manual, repetitive tasks for vital business processes. This includes collecting, reviewing, and capturing data – something that can take up most of your time. Here’s how doing this can hold your business back:  

1 – Reduced Productivity  

Extracting copy from one system to another, locating documents, and data reporting can lead to human error, overtime and increased time spent on a single task, and increased labor costs. Chances are your employees are unhappy, feel uninspired, and wishing for better systems and workflows.  

If you add up the number of hours spent on manual activity per week in your organization, you might agree with Market Research Agency DJS, who found that an estimated 69 working days are lost per year to such tasks.  

According to data aggregated by Compdata Surveys, here are a few of the reasons related to non-automated processes, that are making employees resign: 

• Ineffective IT processes 
• Long onboarding processes  
• And mundane admin processes  

 2 – Lack of Visibility  

The most critical of business qualities you should have is visibility. If you don’t have this then you have no line of sight of what is going on in your organization, nor can you track or audit your work. Modernized businesses are using their business data to develop key insights that are helping them to move forward and make more improved business decisions. If you’re not already doing this, you have no clear overview of the processes and how you can advance into new levels of growth.  

The more digitized and automated tasks you have, the more understanding you will have of your metrics, business insights, patterns, and behaviors, to address, resolve and improve.  

For example, if you have an idea of the frequent requests and queries you may have from your customers, you can analyze this data for better customer service.  

3 – Slow Customer Responsiveness  

Inefficient, manual tasks cause a ripple effect that impacts customer service and the speed at which you can respond to inquiries. In most cases, customers have found themselves being asked the same questions over and over again or having to submit documents that have been misplaced. 

Having a secure, accurate, and easy to access platform where you keep all your customer data can help you in the long run. You’ll be able to personalize your services, strengthen relationships and provide valuable services.  

Chatbots are increasingly becoming a means to which businesses are facilitating fast engagement with their customers and taking action on behalf of the business. The smart tools can place orders, give status reports and recommend new offers.  

4 – Increased Compliance Risk  

When you perform critical tasks manually, it’s easy to have no compliance practices in place and have your business at risk. For industries like healthcare, education, government, or finance, abiding by regulations is absolutely crucial. By removing manual tasks and utilizing automation, you can ensure that your employees will be following procedures, that comply with industry standards and don’t jeopardize your compliance needs.  

According to American Media research, due to the financial crisis and increasing regulations, as well as manual efforts to ensure mortgage investor and regulatory compliance, mortgage origination costs in the U.S. are three times higher than they were just a decade ago. 

5 – Lack of Business Resilience and Agility  

As a business operating today, you need resilience. It goes hand in hand with digital transformation and without it, you’re almost guaranteed not to unlock your fullest potential.  

Manual tasks can hinder your efforts to grow and scale rapidly and managing resources and demand will become a challenge. One of the ways you can improve and entrench agility and resilience is to provide your team with the correct tools, support, and training, to help them adapt and boost their capabilities to deliver excellent work.  

6. Inability to Innovate 

If you have no motivation, you cannot be creative, nor can you come up with cutting-edge solutions and innovations to introduce in the market. This is because you don’t have the time, tools and resources,  to channel your energy towards valuable business building, customer-orientated strategic activities.  

Making digital transformation a priority is critical to driving innovation, however, not many organizations are taking advantage of this.  

How to Move Forward   

Embrace technology and tools which allow you to take your business to the next level. Making way for a work culture that welcomes change will be better for you, your staff, and your company in the long run. Reap the benefits of automation, you will have increased collaboration and productivity, have increased visibility, and more time on your hands to drive valuable operations. 

If you would like some help on that journey, Mint runs a fantastic program called Smart Compliance, aimed at assisting organizations to build a transformative Information Governance Roadmap. This incorporates strategies for automation, compliance, and teamwork, which are tailored to your organizational strategy. Click here to find out more.