The global pandemic became a great opportunity for the world to get into the transition mode toward building a new future driven by technology. With the new challenges imposed by the pandemic, it was indeed a nightmare for almost every sector to suddenly shift the entire workforce online. The effect of the pandemic on workplaces has been so massive that as of now, over 60% of the total global employees are still working remotely instead of reporting offline at offices. What was once believed as a major expense for the companies has now proven to be a profitable investment as they are now saving heavily on their office running expenses. The money can now be invested in more important assets such as skill enhancement of the employees and inventory building and the list just goes on further.
With these changing times, speech recognition technology has emerged as a need for companies in order to get more efficient and productive in this new normal. This new technology is being adopted in almost every sector massively. However, we can call the pandemic a medium for boosting the use of speech recognition tools as this technology was an area of interest for many tech giants even before 2020. The rate at which speech recognition has penetrated the workplace is truly commendable. Companies are now getting equipped with voice command tools that are not only enhancing the customer experience but are also making a marvelous transformation in documentation and other written tasks.
Well, the history of speech recognition tools goes back to the early 90s. Dragon Systems Inc. was one of the pilot companies which made a major breakthrough in speech recognition technology. However, it came with its own limitations as it was very heavy on the pocket as well as was only available for Microsoft programs.
Major tech giants including Google and Microsoft have been making groundbreaking innovations toward transforming speech recognition technology. The speech recognition search was developed by Google in 2008. However, this technology was used substantially with Google Docs only after 2015.
Now, let us have a look at some of the game-changing advantages of using speech recognition technology in the workplace:
Productivity and Efficiency Boost: We all have seen that with the collaboration of human intelligence and artificial intelligence, the overall productivity and efficiency of all tasks have been boosted substantially. The main agenda of speech recognition software is to boost output and make exponential growth. With this technology, users can easily get the work done by simply dictating replies to emails, noting down important information and documents, and many other important tasks without actually doing the tedious job of actually entering the data manually. This will not help in saving money but will give the employees more time to invest in other more important tasks. This technology breaks down all the hindrances which we can think may come between our mind and the desired result. It is believed that on average, an employee is engaged in documentation work for nearly 60% of his / her time. If there is any error, then the process can take another 30 % to 40 % of the time.
Speech Recognition software can straight away speed up the process of transfer of information and its interpretation leading to a much faster and more dynamic experience.
Eliminating the injury factor: Corporate life is considered to be one of the most stressful jobs in the world. With stress comes a lot of health hazards and injuries. One of the most common problems is carpal tunnel syndrome which is caused due to repetitive usage of a mouse, keyboard, and monitor. With speech recognition models, these diseases can be easily terminated. Not only this but the software also caters to the limitations of specially-abled employees who can not operate computers effectively.
Much Improved and stabilized Mobility: The global pandemic has affected the corporate sectors and we have already seen how it has shifted the work from offline to online. The number of employees working remotely is increasing and with this new normal the need for an employee to travel especially to attend a meeting is no longer needed. All thanks to Speech Recognition tools which have made Mobility much more smoother and efficient! The client and employee relationship has become stronger which has resulted in more productivity and better user experience. This advancement in technology is also providing employees with much-needed flexibility and comfort in their hectic and stressful lifestyles. Well, we all need to agree that employee satisfaction is a very important step in order to seek better results and output for any organization.
When we are talking about the advantages of speech recognition, it is important that we also highlight the areas that this software needs to improve in order to provide a better and more efficient experience. People across the globe have different accents and languages which are very difficult to inculcate in the software. Along with this, when the employees are working remotely, background noise and internet stability are major issues while using the software. This ultimately makes a big hindrance while making the speech recognition software more accurate and efficient. When the entire work shifts to online, data leakage and hacking is also an aspect that needs to be taken care of as they may result in privacy breaches while using speech recognition software.
Speech recognition software is eliminating the existing limitations of the corporate world which were acting as barriers while expanding the workforce and business. With this software, there will be a massive boost in the productivity and efficiency of the workforce of the companies. The future is driving itself toward innovation and it is clear that the future is technology. Safety and security along with efficiency and accuracy should be the key areas while developing software like speech recognition as this software have the potential of transforming the complete ballgame. Speech recognition is leading this revolution and now connecting to people from any part of the world has become a reality!
Author- Toshank Bhardwaj, AI Content Creator
