Human Capital and Robotic Process Automation

The Deloitte Human Capital practice can support your organization in getting ready for RPA and implement RPA tools in the HR function. Our service offering includes:

• Change Management for cross-functional RPA projects
• Prepare Organizations and its people for RPA
• Implement RPA for various HR processes

Introduction

Robotic Process Automation (RPA) uses software, commonly known as a ‘robot’, to capture and interpret existing IT applications to enable transaction processing, data manipulation and communication across multiple IT systems in back office functions like finance, operations or HR.

Multiple robots can be seen as a virtual workforce - a back-office processing centre but without the human resources. There are financial benefits owing to the lower cost of a robot licence compared to a typical salary, and firms are also seeing non-financial benefits including improved accuracy, timeliness, and operational flexibility.

At Deloitte, we have deployed RPA software, at scale (to the equivalent of the manual effort of 100s of people), within clients’ organisations, and within our own internal support processes, e.g. for HR processes. We have found it useful to consider robotics (and related cognitive tools) in terms of what they can actually do for a business.

We call these the ‘7 Robotic Skills’ - watch the video below.

Change Management for cross-functional RPA projects

At Deloitte, our practitioners focus on enabling transformations through organizational and personnel solutions, powered by analytics and insight to drive sustainable change. Our services include an array of innovative tools and resources, which we adapt to meet the needs of every client’s unique situation.

We offer a comprehensive approach to a RPA implementation that helps leaders achieve a smooth transition with minimal disruption to the business. Our team focuses on what matters the most − ensuring the employees are willing and able to adapt and change.

Prepare Organizations and its people for RPA

The advance of automatisation and digitalisation will continue to change the nature of work. As RPA tools grow in sophistication, almost every job is being reinvented. Organisations must consider how they design jobs, organise work, and plan future growth. To remain competitive, Deloitte helps companies to keep abreast of technological advances and drive such changes – this requires appropriately skilled employees. Investment in ongoing skills development for the workforce is therefore central not only for talent management strategy but also for the company’s prospects of success.

Implement RPA for various HR processes

RPA tools are best suited for processes with repeatable, predictable interactions with IT applications. These processes typically lack the scale or value to warrant automation via core systems transformation or if core systems transformation is not due to be implemented soon. RPA tools can improve the efficiency of these processes and the effectiveness of services without changing the underlining systems.

RPA software ‘robots’ perform routine business processes by mimicking the way that people interact with applications through a user interface and following simple rules to make decisions. Entire end-to-end processes can be performed by software robots with very little human interaction, typically to manage exceptions.

A view from our clients

We recently conducted a survey of over 100 Shared Services leaders which showed that they now see RPA as a viable, proven solution, with 74 per cent of survey respondents planning to investigate the technology in the next year and 22 per cent having piloted or fully implemented RPA.

Those who had already implemented RPA, identified that RPA meets or exceeds their expectations in terms of financial benefits, and reality tends to outperform expectations even further with non-financial benefits.

Read more in our recent survey based article: The Robots are here - meet your digital workforce.