New research from Ricoh Europe has revealed that just 11% of European office workers have access to automation tools to streamline their workflows despite employee calls to digitalise manual processes.
Conducted by Opinium on behalf of Ricoh Europe, the research found that 44% of 3,000 office workers across the UK, Ireland, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Spain reported no change in their company’s investment in tools to automate tasks or processes over the past year.
It also revealed that 69% of respondents believe automating processes improves their work, as admin-heavy workloads, lack of office booking systems, and inadequate workflow technology hamper employee experience.
“Gone are the days where employees felt concerned about their roles being ‘replaced’ by automation,” said Nicola Downing, CEO, Ricoh Europe. “The value of technology and automation, when implemented effectively, is widely seen to free up time to work on more valuable activities.”
With employers encouraging employees to return to the office, over half of office workers, 54%, think there hasn’t been a change in the amount invested in desk and room booking systems, the study found.
Nearly half of workers cited they would be more productive if their administrative burden wasn’t so high. However, two-fifths are confused by the number of technology platforms that their firms expect them to use, saying these additional tools increase their workload instead of streamline it.
“Ultimately, if employers fail to weave automation into their long-term hybrid working strategies, they could be missing an important opportunity to improve operations while boosting morale and productivity across the entire workforce,” Downing continued.
