{"id":20239,"date":"2021-01-28T10:00:13","date_gmt":"2021-01-28T16:00:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cisco-eagle.com\/blog\/?p=20239"},"modified":"2025-10-20T09:48:03","modified_gmt":"2025-10-20T14:48:03","slug":"how-to-talk-about-automation-with-your-team","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cisco-eagle.com\/blog\/2021\/01\/28\/how-to-talk-about-automation-with-your-team\/","title":{"rendered":"The \u201cA\u201d Word: How to Talk About Automation with Your Team"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"width: 100%; max-width: 650px; height: auto; margin-left: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;\" src=\"https:\/\/images.cisco-eagle.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/Order-picking.jpg\" alt=\"warehouse worker wearing a headset scanning a box\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Maybe you\u2019ve reached a point in your business where automation seems inevitable. You have to scale up to keep up, and you need new technology. We advise companies on this transition, and it can start with smaller changes than you might think. But if you haven\u2019t broken the seal yet, you might be wondering: how do I discuss this with my employees?<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<aside class=\"tldr-summary\" style=\"padding: 10px 20px 15px 25px; margin-bottom: 50px; border-radius: 15px; border: 2px solid #e4dddd; margin: 4px 10px 4px 10px; box-shadow: 0 4px 8px 0 rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.2), 0 6px 20px 0 rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.19);\" data-type=\"summary\">\n<h4>TL;DR \u2013 Communicating warehouse automation changes<\/h4>\n<p>Introducing automation to your team requires open communication and empathy to minimize resistance. By focusing on how automation will empower employees, you can encourage adoption and highlight that new technology is meant to enhance, not replace, human work.<\/p>\n<\/aside>\n<p><script type=\"application\/ld+json\">\n{\n  \"@context\": \"https:\/\/schema.org\",\n  \"@type\": \"BlogPosting\",\n  \"headline\": \"The \u201cA\u201d Word: How to Talk About Automation with Your Team\",\n  \"name\": \"The \u201cA\u201d Word: How to Talk About Automation with Your Team\",\n  \"description\": \"Introducing automation to your team requires open communication and empathy to minimize resistance. By focusing on how automation will empower employees through Mastery, Autonomy, and Purpose, you can encourage adoption and highlight that new technology is meant to enhance, not replace, human work.\",\n  \"url\": \"https:\/\/www.cisco-eagle.com\/blog\/2021\/01\/28\/how-to-talk-about-automation-with-your-team\",\n  \"datePublished\": \"2021-01-28\",\n  \"author\": {\n    \"@type\": \"Person\",\n    \"name\": \"Jessica Haring\"\n  }\n}\n<\/script><\/p>\n<h3>Automation, people and process are always intertwined<\/h3>\n<p>Doesn\u2019t every sitcom <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=iZ6bamP8wZk\">ever<\/a> have an episode where a workplace brings in a robot to do the work, and in the end man triumphs over machine? Is automation replacing humans and killing jobs? That&#8217;s certainly a disputed claim, but robotics and other automation does reduce the need for employees in certain areas, even if gains in others offset the losses.<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019ve had aspects of my job outsourced or automated, and to be honest, getting that news wasn\u2019t super fun. It sounded like, &#8220;I don\u2019t want you complicating your job with your thinking.&#8221; On the other side of the changes, I realized I had more mental energy to devote to the aspects of my job that only a human could do, and that turned out to be a good thing.<\/p>\n<p>If automation is not necessarily a dehumanizing creativity killer, how do you introduce it to your employees to minimize resistance and encourage their cooperation? Because you\u2019ll need their cooperation if the systems are going to work.<\/p>\n<p>This isn\u2019t a complete guide to those conversations, but here are a few guiding principles.<\/p>\n<h3>Empathize to supersize<\/h3>\n<p>Think about your job. You use a hundred little processes that no one else knows about, because you developed them over time to get the job done. How well would you handle being told that you had to throw them out and start over, and that you had no control over the changes?<\/p>\n<p>Your employees are no different. They have ways of getting their job done, refined by repetition, and it might be hard to let go. A sense of acknowledgment\u2014a &#8220;thank you&#8221; for what they\u2019ve accomplished with the tools they had at the time\u2014along with the opportunity to offer input can help grease the wheels of change. They can also provide key guidance as automated processes are developed if you ask them what they do and how.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><em>The important thing is to consider what motivates you, because that&#8217;s probably what motivates your employees.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<h3>What employees want<\/h3>\n<div class=\"row\">\n<div class=\"col-md-8\">\n<p>Your warehouse workforce may not rush to tell you about their feelings. That\u2019s probably not your culture, and that\u2019s okay (provided, of course, that they\u2019re not acting out by setting fires in the break room). To tap into what your employees want from their job, follow the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.danpink.com\/books\/drive\/\">MAP<\/a> from author Daniel Pink:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Mastery:<\/strong> the feeling of doing their job competently<\/li>\n<li><strong>Autonomy:<\/strong> the feeling of being trusted to make the decisions that affect their day-to-day work<\/li>\n<li><strong>Purpose:<\/strong> the feeling that their work contributes to something of value<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>These are powerful motivators. To help make sure they\u2019re working for you as you implement new technologies, here are a few questions you might ask yourself:<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"col-md-4\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/images.cisco-eagle.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/Pick-to-Light-picking.jpg\" alt=\"worker picking an order in a pick-to-light system\" \/><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<ul>\n<li>How can I find out how well my employees currently experience these three things in their job?<\/li>\n<li>If I want my employees to feel empowered to pick up the new technology and run with it, what would the training look like?<\/li>\n<li>What does communication look like between management and people in the trenches? Do employees have a way to ask questions or give feedback?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>You have no shortage of books, programs and services available to you that target employee engagement. However you go about it, cultivating mastery, autonomy and purpose will help make your team more agile in implementing new processes. For us, that means making ownership a critical part of our culture.<\/p>\n<h3>Culture is king<\/h3>\n<p>What\u2019s the current state of your company culture? It\u2019s wise to find out. Walk around. Use employee surveys. Unfortunately, there\u2019s no quick and easy rehab for major problems. Ping-pong tables are no match for entrenched disrespect, mistrust, finger-pointing and bullying. To be blunt, if your culture sucks, you have problems automation won\u2019t solve. How do you correct course, or make a generally healthy culture even better?<\/p>\n<h4>Here\u2019s what\u2019s working for us<\/h4>\n<p>Cisco-Eagle is a proud <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cisco-eagle.com\/vector\/415\/employee-ownership\">ESOP<\/a> company, which stands for Employee Stock Ownership Program. Because every employee owns stock, we all look forward to long-term benefits when the company succeeds. In the day-to-day, this looks like a company-wide awareness of how we\u2019re doing overall, with a widespread motivation to do what\u2019s best for the company.<\/p>\n<p>Besides the ESOP, Cisco-Eagle practices <a href=\"https:\/\/www.greatgame.com\/the-fundamentals\/open-book-management\">Open Book Management<\/a>. This is exactly what it sounds like: every employee has access to all financial information minus specific salaries. When we do well, the success flows to everyone in the company\u2014directly, monetarily\u2014through a structured bonus program.<\/p>\n<p>If you introduced automation as a tool that will reduce costs and increase throughput and revenue, to the benefit of everyone in the company, do you think your employees would slow the process with passive-aggressive foot-dragging? Probably not.<\/p>\n<p>When you treat people like adults, you might be surprised when adults show up to work for you\u2014and start taking responsibility for their part in your company\u2019s growth. That will only ease your transition to automated processes. Because the best way to bring in the robots is to treat your human workforce like they&#8217;re humans.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Maybe you\u2019ve reached a point in your business where automation seems inevitable. You have to scale up to keep up, and you need new technology. We advise companies on this transition, and it can start with smaller changes than you might think. But if you haven\u2019t broken the seal yet, you might be wondering: how [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21588,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"series":[],"class_list":["post-20239","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-automation"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2027-04-09 14:13:48","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cisco-eagle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20239","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cisco-eagle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cisco-eagle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cisco-eagle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/21588"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cisco-eagle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20239"}],"version-history":[{"count":25,"href":"https:\/\/www.cisco-eagle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20239\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33006,"href":"https:\/\/www.cisco-eagle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20239\/revisions\/33006"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cisco-eagle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20239"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cisco-eagle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20239"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cisco-eagle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20239"},{"taxonomy":"series","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cisco-eagle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/series?post=20239"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}