@Reece, if your snes controller is detected as a xinput device I would think it would just work. Unfortunately I don't have one so cant test, but as long as the snes controller physically has the buttons you want to use it shouldn't be a issue.
Edit.
Also if your osmc remote has the equivalent of a escape button on it you can just use that, that's all the automation is doing its just sending a "escape" command.