According to a recent survey conducted by automation software company UiPath, a majority of employees (approximately 60%) believe that using artificial intelligence (AI)-driven automation solutions can alleviate job burnout, and significantly improve job satisfaction. In addition, 57 percent of respondents said they have a more positive view of employers who adopt business automation to support employees and streamline operations, reflecting their approval of the practice.
As workloads intensified, 28% of respondents reported additional responsibilities due to layoffs or hiring freezes. 29% of workers worldwide experience burnout. This has led to a growing reliance on AI tools to relieve stress.
These factors have led to the emergence of the so-called “Automation Generation”—a group of professionals, regardless of age or demographic, who are proactively adopting automation and AI to enhance collaboration, spark creativity, and increase productivity. These individuals actively seek technology that can improve their professional and personal lives.
One of the key findings of the survey was that 31 percent of respondents said they already use business automation solutions in the workplace. Generation Automated believe they have the resources and support they need (87%) to perform their responsibilities effectively. Additionally, 83 percent of these workers believe business automation solutions are effective in reducing burnout and increasing job satisfaction.
“With more than half of respondents saying they believe automation can address burnout and increase job satisfaction, it is clear that AI-driven business automation technologies are already having a positive impact on business and technology workers, helping them reduce Time spent on repetitive tasks can be used to focus on more critical and interesting work,” said Brigette McInnis-Day, Chief People Officer at UiPath.
She emphasizes that this statement is supported by the fact that 80% of respondents who already use business automation solutions believe that these solutions enable them to perform their jobs more Employers have a more positive view than employers who do not automate their business.
Surveys show that workers around the world are increasingly turning to automation and AI-powered tools for menial tasks. Specifically, respondents said they want automation to assist them with tasks such as data analysis (52%), data entry/creation (50%), IT/technical problem solving (49%) and report generation (48%).
When asked what contributed to their burnout and job burnout, respondents cited working beyond schedule (40%), pressure from managers and leadership (32%), and being overly involved in tactical tasks (27%). %) as the main reason.
“AI-driven automation emerges as the solution to alleviating these leading causes of burnout, enabling employees to locate and analyze data quickly and easily while streamlining repetitive and time-consuming tasks,” McInnis-Day told VentureBeat.
In terms of how automation tools impact their work, respondents said they want more flexibility in their work environment (34%), allocate time to acquire new skills (32%) and dedicate time to critical tasks (27%) %).
“Unlike previously defined generational categories, the Automated Generation includes all age groups and demographics,” McInnis-Day explained, “This is a group of professionals who embrace AI and use these technologies to enable more collaboration, creativity and productivity, and using these technologies to provide a more satisfying, positive workplace experience, enrich their personal lives and keep them from feeling like robots overall. They seek to rejuvenate and restore meaning in their work – and automation is helping them do that A goal.”
Unsurprisingly, the survey showed that younger employees are more accepting of these new technologies. A majority of Gen Z (69%), Millennial (63%), and Gen X (51%) respondents strongly believe that automation has the potential to improve their job performance.
“Among surveyed employees, 31 percent said they were already using business automation solutions (39 percent of them were millennials and 42 percent were Gen Z). In addition, among the 31 percent of Eighty-seven percent of those surveyed felt they had the resources and support they needed to do their jobs effectively,” McInnis-Day added.
Conducted in March 2023, the survey gathered online responses from 6,460 executives around the world.
