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Repetitive and routine work can make work days seem to stretch into an eternity of boredom. Minds wander, mistakes are made, and the employees who shoulder these tasks feel unmotivated and uninterested in their work except as a means of survival. It’s clearly not a recipe for a happy, productive workplace, but the work must be done. Is there a way to take the pain out of these tasks and realize the potential of your workforce more fully in the process? Consider these ideas.
1. Implement Robotic Process Automation
What is robotic process automation? – Servicenow defines it as the automation of human activities and data movement activities so that repetitive, monotonous, and rule-based activities are completed quickly and accurately. In essence, almost any monotonous task can be automated, and with software now able to “learn” tasks from human operators, it’s able to achieve more than you might have realized.
2. Enrich Jobs With Varied and More Interesting Tasks
When there’s not (yet) a way to automate a dull task, organizing things so that workers get to divide their day between it and other, more challenging tasks can help to reduce the monotony. Look for job enrichment duties that will allow them to exercise a little creativity or demonstrate new skills and arrange for the “unloved” task to be split up according to a rota.
3. Change Things Up With Job Rotation
When teams are able to take turns at doing different jobs, it can be a way of adding interest to their work life without actually allocating any extra responsibilities to their workload. For example, production line workers can be trained to work in different stations according to a schedule that provides at least some variation and helps to keep them more alert and interested in their work.
4. Set Challenges
Although productivity has its limits, setting targets and defining challenges can be a way to gamify the monotony of a workday. Although incentives are controversial, small, non-monetary rewards can promote a spirit of healthy competitiveness between teams. However, do ensure that the competitiveness is, in fact, healthy for both the teams involved and your business.
5. Provide Training and Opportunities for Advancement
Very often, the people to whom the “simplest” jobs are given are unskilled workers. Providing training helps them to learn new skills and prepares them for more challenging and lucrative work in the future. You’ll also be able to identify the individuals with the most talent, and by beginning recruitment for posts internally, they’ll have a chance of being able to implement their new skills within your company while you save on onboarding and recruitment costs.
Will Repetitive Work Always be With Us?
As technology advances, it seems likely that repetitive work will gradually fade from the employment landscape. To a certain extent, it already is – even in agricultural concerns and small businesses. Automation is a major focus for today’s tech companies, and it will be interesting to see further developments that will forever change the way we work. For now, it already represents a major opportunity that many businesses have not yet explored to the full.
