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Welcome to the Technology Translator. I'm Vic. Every episode we break down technology, cybersecurity, and AI into plain English for Australian business leaders. Welcome to the podcast. Welcome back to the Technology Translator, the podcast that helps technology make sense. Today I want to talk about something that every business owner, manager, and team leader has probably experienced. The business grows. You hire more people, you buy more technology, you implement new systems, revenue increases, customers increase. And somehow, despite all of that, it feels like everyone is busier than ever. Now, most people assume that's just part of growth. More customers means more work. More staff means more management. More revenue means more responsibility. And while that is true to an extent, I don't think that's the whole story. Because over the years I've noticed something. A lot of businesses aren't doing valuable work keeping busy. They're busy moving a lot of information around. And that's what I want to talk about today, what I call hidden labor. The work no one budgets for, the work no one measures, and the work that slowly creeps into a business over time until it becomes a part of everyday life. Because once you start looking for hidden labor, you see it everywhere. And more importantly, once you understand it, you can also start removing it. So let's start with a simple question. What actually creates value inside your business? If you're an accountant, it's helping clients manage their finances. If you're a lawyer, it's providing legal advice. If you're a trade person, it's completing the work. If you're in sales, it's helping customers solve problems. Those activities create value. But then there's also this whole category of work, the fording of emails, chasing updates, copying information from one system to another, following up internally, finding documents, creating reports, checking spreadsheets, attending the latest status meeting, searching for the latest version of a file. And now look, some of those activities are necessary, but very few of them actually create value for the customer, and that's hidden labor. The work that keeps the machine moving, but doesn't necessarily move the business forward. And one of my favorite questions is this. If I followed you around for a week, how much of your time would be spent creating value and how much would be spent moving information around? Because they are two very different things. And most businesses spend a lot more time on the second category than they realize. The interesting thing about hidden labour is that no one intentionally creates it. No one wakes up in the morning and says, you know what this business needs? More administration. It happens gradually. A mistake gets made, so a review step gets added. Document goes missing, so another filing process gets created. A report gets requested, and now it's produced every month forever. Someone doesn't trust the system, so they create their own spreadsheet. Someone doesn't know where something should live, so they do save it in three different places. And over time, the business layers accumulate. There's layers of process, layers of administration, layers of work. Every layer may make sense on its own, but together they create complexity. And complexity creates hidden labour. And this is why businesses often feel harder to run every single year. Not because they're growing, because they're carrying around years of accumulated work that no one has ever stopped to question. One story that's always stuck with me comes from when I was a teenager. My mother ran a business and I worked there from time to time. There was an accountant she worked with who had a filing system that absolutely fascinated me and drove me a wee bit insane. Every single document got copied multiple times. On paper. An invoice for a pair of boots might be filed under the company name, then filed under boots, then filed under clothing. Three copies, three filing locations, physical filing locations, they were all paper again. Three opportunities to find it later. At the time I thought this was absolutely ridiculous. Why do the same work three times? But looking back, I don't think the accountant herself was actually the problem. I think the system was. She wasn't creating the extra work for herself just because she wanted to. She was creating the extra work because she didn't trust the process. She wanted to make sure that the information could always be found. And look, we were talking about a construction organization as well, so some people may have thought to look under B for boots or C for clothing if they're looking for an invoice for a pair of boots. And a lot of businesses still do this today just with different tools. Someone keeps a spreadsheet because they don't trust the CRM. Someone saves documents locally because they don't trust the shared drive. Someone maintains their own customer list because they don't trust the central database. Someone forwards emails to themselves just in case. The workaround becomes the process, and before long no one remembers why it started in the first place. And this is usually the point where businesses start asking an important question. How much of this work actually needs to exist? Because once you start looking closely, you realize a surprising amount of effort is being spent maintaining the process rather than delivering the outcome. People forwarding emails, copying between systems, updating spreadsheets, creating reminders. None of that is necessarily creating value for a customer. It's simply keeping the machine moving. And eventually, businesses reach a point where they start asking, is there a better way to do this? Can we reduce some of this manual effort? Can we remove some of these repetitive tasks? Can technology help us spend less time administering the business and more time actually running it? And that is where automation enters the conversation. And it's not because automation is trendy. It's not because someone's mentioned AI. It's not because a vendor sold you a shiny new platform. It's because you've identified work that probably doesn't need a human doing it anymore. And that's a very important distinction. The goal definitely isn't to automate everything. The goal is to remove unnecessary labor. So let's talk about automation. Because this is where technology does become very useful. A lot of businesses ask, what can we automate? And I think the better question is, what work are humans doing that a system could do just as effectively? Because automation definitely is not about replacing people. Automation is about removing repetitive work. So think about some common examples. A customer fills out a form on your website, that information needs to go somewhere. Salesperson needs to be notified. New customer signed a contract. Finance needs to know. An invoice needs to be created. You have someone join the business. IT needs to set them up. HR needs forms completed. Their manager needs onboarding tasks assigned. A customer hasn't paid an invoice. Someone says needs to send a reminder. If a support request comes in, it needs to go to the right person. These were all repetitive activities and they happen frequently, and they usually follow the same pattern, and they don't require deep human judgment every single time. And that is where automation makes sense. Not because it's exciting, it's definitely not futuristic, but because it removes work that doesn't need a human brain attached to it. The best automation is often boring. It just works quietly in the background, no one has to remember, no one has to copy paste, no one has to forward things on. The information just moves where it needs to go, and that is ultimately the goal. So let's actually slow down and explain the word automation because it does get thrown around constantly. Automation simply means technology performs a task automatically based on a rule or a trigger. So a trigger is the thing that starts the process. For example, the customer submits the form, a contract gets signed, or an invoice becomes overdue. That trigger starts a workflow. Workflow is another one of those business buzzwords. It's just a series of steps. If this happens, do that. So if a customer fills out the website form, create a CRM record. If a CRM record isn't created, notify the salesperson. If a deal is marked as one, notify finance. That's a workflow. And where software performs those steps automatically, that's automation. Simple, it's not magic, there's no AI required, it just removes repetitive administration. So now we're going to hit one of those technology words that people hear on a regular basis. API. You'll hear vendors talk about APIs. You'll hear consultants talk about APIs. You'll hear software companies say, Yes, we have an open API. And a lot of people nod along without really knowing what on earth that actually means. So let's explain it simply. An API is a way for two systems to communicate. Think of it like a waiter in a restaurant. You tell the waiter what you want, the waiter takes the order to the kitchen, the kitchen prepares it, the waiter brings the response back. The waiter is the API, just carries the information between the two places. So in a business context, your website might collect a customer inquiry. An API can send that inquiry into your CRM. Your CRM might send that information to your accounting system. The API is what helps move information between systems without a person manually copying and pasting it. And that's why APIs matter. They allow systems to work together. And when systems work together properly, people spend less time moving information around. So another word you'll hear is integration. An integration is simply the connection between two systems. Websites connected to your CRM, your CRM connected to your accounting software, your accounting software connected to your reporting tool. When people say we need these systems integrated, what they usually mean is we need information to flow between these systems without people manually moving it. And that's just the plain English version. A good integration means information gets entered once and then flows where it needs to go. A bad integration means people still need to check, copy, fix, chase, and manually update things. And this is where businesses need to be careful. Because just because two systems can connect doesn't mean the connection will be simple. Sometimes there are integrations that are built in. Sometimes they actually require configuration. Sometimes they require a lot of configuration. Sometimes they require a third-party tool. And sometimes they actually require custom development. And sometimes the integration technically exists, but it doesn't actually do what the business needs it to do. And this is why you need to understand the process before buying the software. Otherwise, you end up with systems that technically connect but don't actually solve the problem. So there are risks of automation, and this is the part that doesn't get spoken about enough. Automation is fantastic, integration is fantastic, APIs are fantastic. But every automation you introduce becomes another moving part in the business. And moving parts can break. An API key can expire, a password can change. A software vendor can update their platform. A field name can change, a system can go offline, a workflow can fail. And there's a lot of these elements that all it takes is a very tiny change in order to actually make things stop working. Website leads then don't reach sales, invoices don't get generated, tasks don't get assigned. And sometimes no one notices straight away. And that's the risk that we're actually looking at. Automation is removing a lot of this manual work, but it also creates a dependency. So whenever you are looking at automation, ask how do we know if this broke? Who owns it? Who fixes it? Is there a backup process? Can we manually intervene if we need to? Because good automation isn't just automated, it's also monitored. Someone knows when it fails, someone understands what it does, and someone's also responsible for keeping it running. Now, we're going to jump into a section that's just because you can automate it, doesn't mean you should. And I think this is especially important right now because we are living through the AI boom. Everywhere you look, people are asking, can AI do this? Can AI automate that? Can we replace this process? Can we remove this person completely? And look, in many cases, the answer is yes. But we're also asking the wrong question. The better question is, should AI do this? Because those are two very different conversations. AI can write emails, it can also summarize meetings, it can generate reports, it can answer questions, it can review documents, it can help draft proposals, it can create content, and it can do an enormous amount of work, but not all work is the same. So let's take customer service as an example. If someone submits a support request and receives an automated response saying, thanks, we received your inquiry. Fantastic, no problem. But if that customer is frustrated, upset, threatening to leave, or dealing with a serious issue, should that entire conversation be handled by automation? Probably not. Because now you're dealing with trust, and trust is human. Let's take recruitment as another example. Software can schedule interviews, collect documents, send reminders, coordinate calendars. Wonderful. But should software decide who gets hired? That's a very different question. Because hiring requires context, judgment, experience, understanding people, understanding culture, understanding team dynamics. Now, let's talk about sales. AI can summarize meetings, generate notes, draft follow-up emails, update CRM records, remind people to follow up opportunities. Brilliant. But should AI build the customer relationship? Should AI understand a customer's concerns? Should AI negotiate a complex agreement? Should AI manage a strategic relationship? Probably not. Because relationships are built on trust, and trust is still human. The same thing applies to leadership. Software can generate reports, attract metrics, show trends, highlight performance issues. But software doesn't coach people, software doesn't inspire people. Software doesn't navigate difficult conversations. It doesn't understand context. And I think that's where businesses need to be very careful. Automation is fantastic for tasks, but not every relationship should be automated. In fact, I would argue that as technology becomes more common, genuine human reactions become a lot more valuable. So before you go automate something, ask, is this repetitive? Is it predictable? Does it require judgment? Does it involve trust? Does it involve emotion? Does it involve accountability? Because if the answer is yes, you may actually want a human involved. And this is where another concept becomes important. Assisted automation, not full automation. Assisted automation means technology helps human do the job better. For example, AI drafts the email, the human reviews it. AI summarizes the meeting, the salesperson focuses on the relationship. AI creates the report, the manager makes the decision. In many cases that is the sweet spot. You're not removing the human, you're making the human more effective. And that is where businesses should focus. Not replacing people, not automating everything, but removing enough administration that people can spend more time doing valuable human work. So the biggest lesson I want people to take away from today is this. Businesses don't become harder to run because they grow. They become harder to run because hidden labor accumulates, one workaround at a time, one copied email at a time. And technology isn't about buying more software. It's not about creating automation that replaces people. It's about identifying work that no longer needs to exist. Because every hour spent moving information around is an hour that could be spent serving customers, building relationships, solving problems, or actually growing the business. So before you go automate anything, ask yourself what problem are we actually solving? Should this be automated? What happens if it breaks? And where does the human seal matter? Because technology doesn't need to be complicated, it just needs to make sense.au And I guess I wouldn't be doing this properly if I didn't say if you like what you hear, hit the follow button. There will be more of these episodes coming up.