NOVEMBER 25 — In the back offices of banks, law firms and other service companies in Singapore, a robotic revolution is underway. Robotic Process Automation (RPA) is automating tasks that clerical staff and experts have handled for years, and will soon have a profound impact on jobs.

RPA refers to using software or algorithms to automate structured processes in a company. While hardware such as scanners or sensors may be part of this automation, RPA is software-based and thus quite different from the cute humanoid robots in restaurants or the ones on manufacturing lines.

Even though it might seem like RPA would affect repetitive clerical tasks the most, it is actually being used at all levels. In human-resource jobs, for example, RPA enables automated resume screening and initial interviews. Law firm Linklaters is using software instead of junior lawyers to check some client information.

Indeed, RPA can be used everywhere from banking and insurance to healthcare and retail stores. As EY managing partner Liew Nam Soon explained: "RPA is applicable to anything that’s manual and high volume.”

Companies that implement RPA achieve a multitude of benefits, with cost savings often being the most visible. Kinetic Consulting Services found in its research that the cost of a back-office worker in the United States or Australia is about 90 per cent more than using RPA, while an RPA solution is also about 50 per cent cheaper than a Philippines-based agent and 34 per cent less expensive than an Indian offshore worker.

Here in Singapore, according to EY’s Mr Liew, banks are getting robots to operate at one-sixth the cost of an offshore worker and they are achieving 50 to 70 per cent cost savings.

Beyond just cost reduction, however, RPA improves service levels by increasing accuracy and efficiency. Consulting firm Accenture found that other gains include increased capacity and reliability, with typical gains in speed and the volume of tasks processed being two to five times faster.

Impact on employees

While RPA implementation may have been somewhat slow here so far, the pace is picking up. In financial services, Mr Liew said, the early adopters have been leading multinational banks, and Asian regional banks are now starting to work on RPA.

The impact on employment seems bound to increase as well. Advisery firm Mindfields found that RPA often leads to reductions of more than 20 per cent in headcount.

The International Labour Organisation’s Asean in Transformation report earlier this year said one study found that about one-third of total employment in Singapore is at high risk of automation.

Those workers losing their jobs are not just lower-level clerical workers, either. In the United Kingdom, for instance, The Guardian reported that Royal Bank of Scotland plans to eliminate 550 jobs by replacing wealth management staff with robo-advisers.

While some jobs may disappear, RPA can also bring the benefit of eliminating repetitive and boring tasks so that staff can focus on more creative and strategic work.

There are opportunities, then, for workers to enhance the quality of their job. As ANZ Bank Group Hubs general manager Simen Munter said about his firm’s experience with RPA: "We have seen tremendous support from the ‘floor’, and robots are used to augment human capabilities and free people up to do higher-value work.”

To take on that higher-value work, however, employers and employees alike will need to ensure that staff members upgrade their skills. Employers will need to invest to upgrade workers’ skills and create a workplace where they can do more with technology, while employees will need to accept RPA and use it to their advantage.

What employers specifically need to do, consulting firm KPMG suggests, is to communicate to employees that the goal of RPA is operational excellence and efficiency, not just reducing headcount. Employers should "have a strategy in place to help employees transition to different, perhaps more creative and fulfilling, jobs”.

Employers could follow the example of firms such as Walmart, which has launched a Pathways programme that puts employees in a job skills curriculum that prepares them for the future.

At the same time, employees must take responsibility in upgrading their skills. While lifelong learning may have been an option in the past, it is becoming a necessity.

JobsCentral advises choosing two skills that you can advance on each year, taking classes and monitoring your progress. Whether the learning is through online courses, formal training programmes or SkillsFuture credits, employees need to make continuous learning a mindset and reality.

With the need for skills in technology on the rise and thousands of IT jobs already open, there is plenty of opportunity even for workers displaced by RPA — if they acquire the right skills. Along with new roles at their existing employer using newfound skills, companies ranging from consulting firms to government agencies and banks are looking for experts to run or help implement RPA.

In the past, it may have been sufficient to simply perform well and learn a little more every year. Now, however, jobs are under threat from RPA and many will likely disappear.

Employees need to start learning new skills now to become ready for a new role, or risk losing their employment once RPA takes over. — TODAY

* Richard Hartung is a financial services consultant who has lived in Singapore since 1992.

** This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of Malay Mail Online.