What is Augmented Workforce and Why Does it Matter?
An augmented workforce is one where human employees are empowered to be more productive by intelligent automation technologies including digital workers, virtual assistants, and collaborative robots. While full automation aims to replace human jobs, augmented workforce enhances human capabilities and job satisfaction.
This concept matters now more than ever. Businesses today face massive challenges in hiring, retention, and productivity. At the same time, rapid advances in automation present new opportunities to overcome these hurdles.
Let‘s break down the key drivers making augmented workforce crucial:
- The "Great Resignation" has led to critical talent shortages, with over 10 million jobs unfilled in early 2022 in the US alone.
- Generational shifts are depleting workforces rapidly. Over 10,000 baby boomers now reach retirement age daily just in America.
- Most jobs involve significant repetitive tasks that are prime for automation. Even knowledge workers spend over 60% of time on mundane work.
- Automation frees human workers to focus on higher judgement, creative, analytical, and social tasks that drive real business value.
- Leading-edge technologies like artificial intelligence and advanced robotics now enable remarkably human-like digital helpers.
Augmenting people with “virtual colleagues” that handle repetitive work promises to simultaneously boost productivity, job satisfaction, innovation and cost savings.
The World Economic Forum estimates augmented workforce could add $15 trillion to global GDP in the next decade. But what does this look like in practice?
3 Key Technologies Enabling Augmented Workforces
1. Digital Workers
Digital workers are AI-powered software robots that understand tasks, contexts, and complex instructions much like humans. They blend robotic process automation (RPA) with natural language capabilities, machine learning, and optional hands and eyes through IoT integration.
Digital workers act as virtual assistants inside familiar chat apps like Slack, Microsoft Teams, or Skype. They augment people by:
- Automating repetitive tasks like data entry or drafting documents
- Answering questions via voice or text conversations
- Working seamlessly alongside people on shared projects
Leading examples include IBM Watson Orchestrate, Automation Anywhere, and UiPath Assistant.
Businesses save substantial labor costs while achieving higher output and employee productivity using enterprise digital workers. These virtual assistants interpret instructions, gather project details, access systems, execute repetitive tasks, and provide recommendations.
Digital workers directly increase job satisfaction by eliminating tedious tasks. And they indirectly boost morale by enabling people more meaningful work.
2. Intelligent Virtual Assistants (IVAs)
Intelligent virtual assistants (IVAs) like Alexa, Siri and Google Assistant provide similar augmentation abilities using less structured natural language conversations.
IVAs excel at:
- Simplifying tasks through voice commands
- Personalizing responses to individual users
- Integrating Internet of Things (IoT) devices like appliances, vehicles, or industrial equipment
For example, an equipment manufacturer could add IVA interfaces allowing technicians to control and monitor machines via voice instructions. By linking IoT sensor data to intelligent cloud services, IVAs can also automate alerts, maintenance scheduling, defect analysis, and more.
Consumer adoption of IVAs keeps soaring. But most people still only use a fraction of their potential. Enterprises are now deploying IVAs like SAP Conversational AI to engage customers and employees more intuitively.
Training IVAs with industry and task-specific knowledge unlocks more advanced augmentation functionality.
3. Collaborative Robots (Cobots)
Industrial robotics pioneer Rethink Robotics coined the term “cobot” (for collaborative robot) to describe robots working hand-in-hand with people.
Enabled by built-in safety sensors and software, cobots can operate adjacent to (or cooperatively with) human colleagues without safety cages or barriers. Some advanced models also employ computer vision and machine learning to adapt movements to nearby workers and task conditions.
Cobots Increasingly Work Alongside People in Factories [Source: Plus One Robotics]
The flexible, affordable capabilities of cobots allow automation of many production tasks previously impractical with traditional industrial robots. This spans repetitive assembly, packaging, inspection, machine tending and more.
By eliminating dull, physically strenuous activities from people’s responsibilities, cobots boost job satisfaction and staffing efficiencies. Workers gain more front-line oversight duties keeping operations running smoothly. Engineering staff also spend less time on robots enabling faster reconfigurations to new product variants.
Global cobot demand grew nearly 30% annually from 2015-2020, with Asia Pacific representing over 45% of recent sales. With cobots priced around $25,000 on average – well below typical industrial robots – this growth trajectory shows no signs of slowing.
Real Business Benefits from Augmented Workforce Strategies
The most competitive 21st century employers will embrace augmentation approaches across major workforce segments including office workers, operators, technicians, and customer support teams.
Leaders who simply automate away human jobs without considering holistic workforce needs risk severe morale drops and skill gaps rendering operations utterly unprepared for future opportunities.
But what benefits should companies implementing augmented workforces expect?
1. Greater Efficiency and Output
Of 200 major company leaders recently surveyed by PwC, 41% believe automating tasks can generate over 20% productivity gains. And 28% estimate over 30% efficiency improvements from embedding smart technologies.
41% of CEOs See >20% Employee Productivity Gains from Intelligent Automation [PwC]
Automating repetitive activities through digital workers and bots coupled with amplified employee output from more strategic work unleashes major combined productivity payoffs.
This efficiency compounding effect typically yields hard savings from needing fewer staff to complete augmented processes at higher quality levels and speeds.
2. Enhanced Worker Satisfaction
Few people relish boring repetitive tasks, however important the underlying process. Digital assistants liberating workers from data entry, report generation, research, appointment scheduling, and other mundane responsibilities fundamentally improve job happiness.
Relieved of many low-value activities, human team members can uplevel their contributions in judgement, relationship building, creative thinking, and problem-solving roles machines can’t match. Purpose and professional growth soar when automation handles tedious tasks.
Beyond direct efficiency gains, multiple studies reveal over 80% of workers feel more positive about companies automating repetitive aspects of their jobs. Simplicity and flexibility to focus on meaningful work and life priorities drive both productivity and retention.
3. Cost Competitiveness
World Economic Forum analysis shows growing global labor shortages could soon eliminate 85 million jobs while creating 97 million new ones.
Navigating this churning employment landscape rules out simply replacing people with technology. But for many routine tasks, human labor proves far costlier than automation.
Intelligent solutions like enterprise digital workers, IVAs with custom skills, and affordable cobots to shoulder dull manual work deliver unmatched ROI. In worst case scenarios, augmentation provides hedge against rising wages or employee turnover.
However, most adopters see automation and people combining capabilities greater than either could contribute individually.
4. Business Model Innovation
Economist Joseph Schumpeter coined the term “creative destruction” describing innovations disrupting old technologies and systems. Today, few companies feel immune to digital transformation remaking entire industries.
Many legacy practices now inhibit organizational agility required to iterate products, services, and processes matching market demands. Augmentation breaks down barriers to speed, experimentation, and cross-functional transparency.
Having digital assistants rapidly gather data or cobots easily adapt production workflows allows teams to test ideas faster while learning what appeals to evolving customer priorities.
This culture shift unlocks new partnership, business model, and monetization opportunities once hindered by fixed assets and rigid hierarchies.
5. Scalability and Growth
Demand fluctuations strain many enterprises lacking flexible resources to meet surging needs quickly. Lengthy recruiting and training processes also throttle scaling efforts.
Digital workforce solutions handle large spikes in volume without lead times or incremental costs. Whether website traffic surges, orders jump, or one manufacturing center sees bottles necks from another’s downtime, intelligent algorithms slot in additional robotic help precisely when and where needed.
Suddenly expanding into new global territories or markets also grows easier by deploying extremely fast cloud-based automation support. This allows small teams to deliver on ambitions far larger enterprises struggle to match.
Agility is the new competitive advantage.
Industry Use Cases Demonstrating Augmentation Value
While applications span virtually any entity with sufficient workers or repetitive tasks, early augmented workforce adoption clusters in:
Manufacturing – Cobots tackle labor-intensive work like packaging or palletizing freeing factory staff to upgrade skills for higher-value responsibilities.
Retail – Shelf scanning bots and smart inventory assistants augment teams improving data quality and real-time supply chain operations.
Healthcare – AI documentation tools expand care while automated patient engagement and administration tasks give staff more face time.
Field Services – Technicians supported by remote experts with AR glasses resolve customer asset issues faster and develop deeper on-site expertise.
Financial Services – Client associates and other professionals utilize enterprise digital workers to prepare reports, analyze deals, and process contracts faster.
Call Centers – Smart virtual agents (SVAs) deflect and resolve tier-one inquiries enabling live agents to focus on relationship building and complicated cases.
Administration – Digital assistants help professionals personally optimize schedules, meeting prep, communications, research, and document management.
One global bank, for example, recently activated over 560,000 employees on AI-powered assistants improving reply rates 83% and almost doubling work item completion.
Capital One publicly aims to become a “66% digital, 33% human workforce” underscoring senior leader buy-in on employment augmentation.
The video below reveals how Formula One racing organization McLaren integrates digital assistants and smart facilities to accelerate innovation. This highlights the growing mandate for augmentation as competitive differentiator.
Digital Assistants at McLaren Apply AI to Speed Manufacturing and Design Workflows
Overcoming Real Challenges in Adopting Augmentation
Most managers recognize competitive necessity to augment workforces. But hurdles ranging from technical literacy to cultural resistance slows many augmentation programs.
Understanding core obstacles allows customizing solutions and communications minimizing disruption:
Talent Skills – Build training to uplift capabilities like conversational interfaces rather than overwhelm less tech-savvy teams.
Trust – Reinforce focus on removing mundane work from people’s loads rather than replacing jobs.
Technical Maturity – Prioritize high impact repetitive tasks and transparent human-bot workflows.
Leadership Alignment – Connect augmentation to business priority pain points and outcomes beyond labor savings.
Change Management – Co-design process changes with impacted workers transparently communicating enhancements.
Governance – Institute data guidelines, monitoring procedures, and controls to ensure responsible AI development.
With careful planning and support, most employees quickly acclimate to digital collaborators amplifying individual productivity and achievements.
The Future of Augmented Workforce
Most leading research firms forecast around half of global companies will begin implementing augmented workforce models over the next five years. ABBYY recently found 51% of enterprises now prioritizing human-AI collaboration around knowledge and content-centric tasks.
As intelligent algorithms grow more contextual and trusted, virtually every role will transform integrating smart capabilities. Management focus must shift from tactical cost agenda to truly valuing and unleashing human potential.
Augmentation marks perhaps the greatest opportunity to realign business models, worker satisfaction, and responsible technology for the challenges ahead.
Will you lead this workforce revolution? Or be left behind clinging to practices fading fast? The choice is yours!
I‘m available to advise business leaders on crafting detailed augmented workforce strategies for their unique operational scenarios. Please reach out anytime to start future proofing your organization!
