Will RPA replace employees? What really happens to the team after software robots arrive

RPA (robotic process automation) is a program that operates company systems just as a person would: it clicks, copies, pastes and checks. It works best with repetitive activities based on clear rules and data in a fixed format. Typical examples are copying order data into the ERP system or downloading bank statements.

A job rarely consists only of such activities. An accountant does not just enter invoices but also resolves discrepancies, talks to suppliers and keeps track of deadlines. The robot takes the first part and leaves the rest to the person.

That is why it is better to ask not “which job will the robot replace?” but “which activities will it take over?”. Here is a typical split:

Take a hypothetical accounts department where three people each spend 4 hours a day entering documents. After the robot is introduced, each of them spends 30 minutes on it: reviewing the report and handling exceptions. So each gets back 3.5 hours a day.

With 250 working days, that is 3 × 3.5 × 250, or 2,625 hours a year. A full-time job is about 2,000 hours on paper, so the time freed up exceeds one full-time position. Plug in your own figures and you will see the scale of the change in your company.

This time can be used in four ways. Each is legitimate, but each requires a different decision and a different conversation with the team:

On a slide the calculation looks simple: two fewer full-time jobs minus the cost of the robot. In practice, it leaves out several items that only come to light after a few months.

The most important is knowledge of the process. People who have handled invoices for years know why supplier X needs a manual correction and why orders from department Y arrive without a number. If they leave before these exceptions are written down, the robot will make mistakes and nobody will be able to identify the cause.

On top of that come costs that do not appear in the first estimate. We list them below.

Automation can be a genuine reason for eliminating a position, but Polish labour law sets specific conditions. In a company with at least 20 employees, severance pay is due even for a single dismissal for reasons not attributable to the employee. It amounts to one month’s pay for less than 2 years’ service, two months’ pay for 2–8 years and three for longer service, capped at 15 times the minimum wage.

The collective redundancy rules apply to companies with at least 20 employees. A collective redundancy means dismissing, within 30 days, at least 10 people in a company with up to 99 employees. In a company with 100–299 people the threshold is 10% of the workforce, and in a larger one 30 people. It requires consultation with trade unions or employee representatives and notification of the labour office.

A company with at least 50 employees that has a works council must also inform and consult it about measures that change the organisation of work. Before deciding on a reduction, consult an employment lawyer on the plan – even the announcement “the robot will replace you” can come back to haunt you in a court dispute.

The role of employees changes markedly after a robot is introduced, although this is rarely spelled out in advance. Instead of performing an activity, they start supervising it. Every morning they check the overnight report and make decisions on the cases the robot could not handle.

They also become the best source of improvements. It is the person working with the robot day to day who will notice that if the robot also downloaded the bank statement, settling advances would be almost done. Over time, small ideas like this deliver more than the first implementation.

This change requires preparation. Employees need to know how to read the exceptions report, whom to report robot errors to and how to describe a change in the process. A few hours of training and a clearly named contact person are usually enough.

The way a company announces the implementation often has more effect on the outcome than the choice of tool. People who feel threatened do not report exceptions and do not help fix errors. The robot then works less well, and the management board gets the signal that the technology is not working.

In the table below we compare three typical ways of communicating and their usual effects. The third requires one honest decision by the management board: that the aim of the implementation is to make better use of the team’s time, not to cut jobs. Without that decision, assurances of partnership sound hollow, and employees will sense it.

The broadest point of reference is the World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs Report 2025. It is based on a survey of more than 1,000 employers who together employ more than 14 million people. It forecasts that by 2030, 170 million jobs will be created and 92 million will disappear.

According to the report, the largest number of jobs will be lost among clerical and secretarial workers. Data entry clerks are among the occupations shrinking fastest. This is a sign that tasks typical for robots really are disappearing – but usually gradually, and alongside the emergence of new roles.

For a mid-sized company, the conclusion is practical. Employees who copy data today will be doing something else in a few years’ time – in your company or another one. It is better if it is yours, because they already know your customers, suppliers and systems.

The best implementations start with a conversation with people, not with choosing a tool. The steps below help avoid most of the problems described above: