1. Challenge:

I work in a Shared Service Center (SSC) of an international company, which is dedicated to  producing products and services in the energy sector; here we take care of centralizing  many tasks from different global areas such as Accounts Payable, Human Resources and IT.  Every day we have many requests for processes, where our objective is to carry them out  correctly and on time, complying with the SLAs established with our Clients (users of the  same company located in different offices and mills around the world).    The challenge was,  the implementation of an automated recurring tasks process called RPA  (Robotic Process Automation),  the acceptance of SSC employees to have to work alongside  a robot was something that had never been carried out in the company. And although the  different benefits from the use of this technology are more than proven, that people accept  it, the resistance to the unknown and that the employee thinks that a robot will take his/her  place, it was a topic difficult to tackle…

-  To find out more about what a Shared Service Center is please go to:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wouXuqJiCro

-  To find out more about what a RPA is please go to:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9URSbTOE4YI

2. Selection:

Visualization is the tool I chose to show our employees the many benefits of using RPA, not  only for the company (costs reduce, 24/7 work force, no errors, etc.); if not for the users  themselves. For this I choose the use of Animated Videos, through the tool: PowToon    PowToon is one of the free and online apps to make popular animated videos. It is very easy  to learn how to create animated videos with PowToon. The variety of templates it offers is  one of its main advantages over other similar applications. In addition, each template has  multiple graphic resources that allow you to personalize your story while respecting the  graphic style.

What is PowToon:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oR__WIK_yqk

Example of Animated Video in PowToon:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PqS-bWQ3YA8

3. Application:

Firstly, we started by conducting some brief surveys with the different employees within  the service center, in these surveys we included questions such as: what they identified as  advantages with the implementation of Robots, as well as which they identified as  disadvantages and in the same way the option of  let us know their concerns if is that they  had them (many did have them).

We also did some personal “interviews” with Team Leaders and some employees taken  from critical areas. The results gave us that although the employees believed that the use  of RPA was something innovative and that it was going to automate many of the tasks they  were currently performing;  this could also be the cause of running out of work to do, and  for that, later they were candidates to be no more required by the company.

And although it was explained to them that this should not be the case, and the diferent  advantages of having an automated process that would help them carry out all those daily  monotonous tasks.

It was only until visualizing it in these animated short videos, (where we showed an  employee saving time, and dedicating it to special tasks that would generate greater value,  as well as leaving the office according to their schedules, having a better life and work  balance, and how this will also help to spend more time with their families, etc, etc,)  that  employees understood in a better way the benefits  and they started supporting the Project,  even they were interested in participate in the robot`s programming, implementation and  maintenance, finding on these a new option of Carreer development and new skills.

4. Insight:

Applying the Visualization tool or visual thinking, I realized that people can identify solutions  that perhaps with simple logical thinking they cannot see. In the same way when you give  people the same concept expressed in images is much more easy to have a general  consensus of some approach or idea, as well as to break established paradigms over time.

When we began to introduce to the SSC the RPA concept, many of the employees don`t  really known what it was, and how it could change or impact their daily work, after surveys,  meetings and the presentation of the RPA through of the videos, with images of common  people like them, and explaning all the benefits that this technology allows, all employees  and the top management were aligned. Everyone began to speak the same language and  redirected their efforts towards a common goal;  and here is when I saw that the resistance  is transformed into support.

5. Approach:

What I`ve learned is that the visualization tool seems to me to be very effective, but I  understand now..that I could use it in different stages of the process, both in much earlier  stages as well as in more advanced stages and later as the project was progressing.

What I would make different would be: involve more people, not only those who are in key  positions, or as supervisors of any group, if not choose people from different areas and  diverse functions and who will be involved in the project from the beginning, where I could  receive their feedback, concerns and ideas more directly.

Maybe I could use a mix of tools, maybe storytelling could be usefull also for this case, I  believe with this course we all have now different ways and options to innovate, always  thinking in people needs and being totally empathic.

