Boredom is a motivation killer: How one HR executive is confronting a silent driver of the Great Resignation

• A record 48 million US workers quit their jobs last year, according to the Labor Department.
• Business leaders might be overlooking a silent factor driving some workers to quit: boredom.

Computers have famously beat humans in crunching complex math problems and in retrieving arcane trivia. Yet there's also a sleeper category in which bots do better: not getting bored.

Anyone who has worked has probably fantasized at some point about quitting — especially when a job is filled with monotonous tasks. A Microsoft survey of more than 30,000 global workers earlier this year found that four in 10 were likely to consider changing jobs in 2022. And workers in the US are still giving notice even as more questions bubble up about the direction the economy will take.

The so-called Big Quit comes even after employers have shoveled unprecedented resources toward employee mental health and well-being in the past two years, according to McKinsey data. Despite their efforts to combat pandemic strains, business leaders could be missing a vital piece of the puzzle: the harmful effect tedious work has on overall life satisfaction.

Nancy Hauge, the chief people experience officer at Automation Anywhere, which develops cloud-automation services, says automation is key to combating workplace boredom and reducing employee burnout.

Insider spoke with Hauge about how the company, which made Newsweek's list of most-loved workplaces for 2021, is helping companies create jobs to attract and retain top talent.

Combating boredom at work

We know that work-related boredom can drive employees out the door. A new report from Cengage Group, a global education-tech firm, found that 83% of workers who resigned last year reported feeling stagnant in their role. It's little surprise to Hauge.

"The Great Resignation is driven by workers demanding more challenging work," Hauge said. Boredom is a motivation killer and people want to do work that is meaningful, she said.

The forces that push workers to quit vary, according to a Gartner survey, but the pandemic triggered masses of people to ask questions like, What makes me happy and whole? What truly satisfies me? Where have I given away too much of myself for little return?

The answers to those questions played a role in pushing a record 47.8 million US workers to quit their jobs last year, according to Labor Department figures.

Hauge has seen workers' existential crises play out in real time. Wellness programs won't reverse burnout induced by dull tasks, Hauge says, but automating these tasks can.

In the past, the expectation that work, by definition, demanded a certain tolerance for drudgery was sufficient to keep most people immersed in their workaday worlds. The necessity of earning a living relegated utterances of "I quit" to the realm of fantasy for many workers in tedious roles. But that's no longer the case.

"In designing the future of work, we have to consider what humans should do and what should be automated," Hauge said.

Reducing employee burnout

Automation Anywhere helps employers take menial tasks off workers' plates. Nike, Verizon, and the Swiss bank UBS employ the company's robotic process-automation software. It works by using what are called smart bots to let companies automate many of their processes.

Hauge said that automation frees up time for workers to "focus on more engaging experiences."

For decades, workforce automation has been met with the fear that robots would eventually put people out of work. However, data suggests the threat to workers is overplayed. According to the World Economic Forum, technology — including bots and artificial intelligence — will create at least 12 million more jobs than it destroys.

What will change is the nature of the work and the skills required to perform these jobs. The demand for manual labor has been diminishing for decades, and this decline will continue with increased automation.

"If I join a company and they give me tools so I never have to load basic analysis into a spreadsheet — if I can use my digital assistant for those kinds of tasks — I'm going to be more satisfied and productive," Hauge said.

The automation of laborious tasks allows employees to do work they find more stimulating, Hauge said. Anyone who has ever ordered an Uber, used a navigation app, or streamed a movie is familiar with the conveniences of consumer AI. Hauge said that work-related automation is no different.

"I have a 40-year career, and the world I live in today is the most thrilling of my career," she said. "Automation frees me up to work on the things that have been sitting on my 'if only' list for years."