Submitted by

Aditi Vidyarthi

Consultant at Infosys Ltd, London

Goa Institute of Management, PGDM, Batch 2009-2011

Contact No. +91-7829910763 (WhatsApp only)

Mobile: +44 7392279963

The New Amalgamated Workplace

Historically a blended workplace meant a combination of full-time workers and contractual

workers/part-time consultants. In today’s world, a “blended workforce” is where Humans and
Bots are combined to induce higher productivity.

A global study conducted by Oracle highlights that Artificial Intelligence (AI) is gaining
much more prominence each year, with 50% of workers in 2019 using some form of AI as
compared to 32% in 2018. The study also states that 64% of employees would trust a robot
more than their manager.

Bots can help with various elements at the workplace like

1. Reduce repetitive task- Monotonous tasks can be automated, less manual tasks for
humans
2. Reduce paperwork- Workflows and processes can be automated
3. Improve accessibility- Ease of reaching a Bot support as compared to Human support
4. Reduce costs- Automation of certain tasks, and Bot support can help reduce costs
5. Improve customer service – Service and helpdesk bots can increase customer
satisfaction by reducing negative interaction and quicker response
6. Better Optimisation – Bots can help analyse bottlenecks in process flows using
various analytics
7. Increase productivity- More time for - innovation, workplace learning, strategic
development
8. Increase Employee satisfaction- Better work-life balance, reduced stress, boost in
team morale, reliable digital co-workers
Helpdesk or Q&A Bots

This is the most common Bot used in organisations. These Bots can set up multiple service
desks for various departments, and multiple issue types within each desk. Commonly asked
questions by employees can be preconfigured, along with their possible solutions. Helpdesk
bots can automatically answer queries and help route or escalate the ticket to correct groups.

Survey Bots

Another commonly used Bot who can create comprehensive surveys and launch them on
various platforms (social media, internal or external websites). Bot can configure surveys in
various formats like - yes/no, multiple-choice, free text, etc.

Task & Productivity Bots

Bots can be used to create tasks and then assign these tasks to employees. Automated
notifications and reminders can be sent to the task assignee. Bots can help track and analyse
tasks based on variables like time required to complete the task, complexity, accuracy, etc to
understand and measure productivity.

Performance Bots

These bots can assist in performance reviews, making them continuous as compared to
cyclical. The Bots can be made to passively collect data from employee messages, emails,
chats etc., thus eliminating the paperwork and annual performance reviews. They can flag
employees that have shown negative behaviours and identify those who have been
productive. The Bots can collect more pertinent feedback data from employees in a time-
efficient manner.

Hiring Bot

The hiring bots can assist with the first round of screening applicants by chatting with them.
Bots can gather information and compile data from applicants through a friendly conversation
of customised and personalised questions and answers. Bots can be made to focus specifically
on finding the applicant who is a best fit for the organisation culturally. It can do so by
creating an engaging fun survey for existing employees to define their collective cultural
identity and then using the same survey the new applicants.

The Secretary Bot

The secretary bots help with organising calendars and scheduling meetings based on available
free times between the participants. The Bot can also converse with the participants until a
suitable time is agreed and works for all participants. Bots can also resolve scheduling
issues. If an employee calls in sick or cannot report to their shift, the Bot will alert their
manager, adjust the employee’s’ calendar or hours, and can find a replacement for that shift.

Learning Management (LMS) Bots

LMS Bot can help to create new courses, learning modules and can make a course more
structured. Bots can be used to create and add personalised questionnaire at the end of a
learning module, entire course or both. Bots can help link courses to existing or new
competencies using competency level analytics. Bots can automatically trigger short survey
for all trainees to gather their feedback on course content, clarity, objective etc

Employee Engagement Bots

Employee engagement at workplace can be improved using Bots which can gather employee
feedback using pulse surveys. This can help compute the Organisational Health Index (OHI)
to measure, track and rectify issues impacting organisational health. Other elements like
Employee Loyalty score can also be calculated based on employee engagement dimensions
like belongingness, recognition, mental wellbeing, opportunities, personal growth etc. Bots
can also be configured to send automated birthday/work anniversary wishes with customized
wished to employees

Social Networking Bots

Bots can help identify colleagues at a workplace that share common interests and goals,
based on previously collected data from employees around interests and preferences. The
Bots can then help arrange meaningful meetups either virtually or physically based on work
location. This can help an organisation with increased effective communication, learning,
mentoring, and cross-department knowledge transfer.

Ethical Implications of using Bots and AI tools

Organisations using Bots and AIs should be able to justify the use of such a tool in an ethical
manner. California’s SB 1001—the "Bolstering Online Transparency," or B.O.T. bill came
into play on July 2019, and it requires online Bots to be upfront about their ‘inhumanity’. 

Companies must tread carefully as Bots can be unethically used to mislead employees and
customers, or to artificially exaggerate follower counts, likes, and retweets. In times of online
chaos and misuse, companies must have strict usage policies which will ensure AI is used
responsibly, data manipulation is not done, and misinformation is not spread.
References:

1. New Study: 64% of People Trust a Robot More Than Their Manager
https://www.oracle.com/corporate/pressrelease/robots-at-work-101519.html
2. California’s Bot Transparency Law Goes into Effect on July 1, 2019
https://www.financialservicesperspectives.com/2019/06/californias-bot-transparency-
law-goes-into-effect-on-july-1-2019/
3. The Human Impact of Bots at Work
https://www.insightsforprofessionals.com/hr/leadership/human-impact-bots-at-work
4. Thinking Outside the Bots: AI in the Workplace
https://www.zenefits.com/workest/thinking-outside-bots-ai-workplace/
5. Huminos Workplace Bots website and image https://www.huminos.com/