Automating manual systems then requires less employees. Less employees often requires less management. If I had done this, I would not in a million years talk to my immediate management about this. I have already been fired once from contract work for merely suggesting that a similar thing was possible.
Do you regret suggesting it? I mean, sure, there would have been some immediate pain involved in finding a new job but surely that was balanced out by not working in a inefficient toxic working environment.
I was working from home, mostly drunk in a hammock while wearing a dressing gown. I had to leave the hammock and put on some respectable clothes and everything.