The future is digital, but that doesn’t mean that human workers have become obsolete. In fact, the complete opposite is true; there is an increasing demand for human employees, specifically with technology skills and an understanding of artificial intelligence.

While human employees strive to advance their tech skills, the digital workforce will continue to evolve and become more widely adopted. The concept of a digital workforce is essentially software robots that work alongside human employees to complete repetitive tasks more efficiently, allowing employees to focus on more value-add tasks. In the contact center, this translates to freeing up agents to handle the more complex interactions.

The digital workforce has the ability to quickly add new capabilities and remain versatile, making it a valuable asset. A digital worker can ultimately be utilized wherever needed as long as it has been trained on those tasks.

Why is a digital workforce important?

As the labor force declines and baby boomers retire, the workforce will shift and organizations need to have a succession plan in place. A digital workforce leverages robotic process automation to handle tasks that are time consuming and repetitive, meaning less new hires will be required to handle those tasks. This allows human employees to focus on the higher-value work, while still being able to trust that the repetitive tasks are being completed efficiently. A digital workforce is also a great solution for companies in a state of hypergrowth that can’t hire and train employees fast enough as they scale.

As the integration of a digital workforce is becoming more common, leaders must be prepared to help employees through the transformation and empower these employees to help “teach” their digital co-workers.

Learn more about the importance of combining the traditional human workforce with a digital workforce in this article.