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2015-03-24 05:55:08
Rebecca Knight
March 19, 2015
Bringing new technology and tools into your organization can increase
productivity, boost sales, and help you make better, faster decisions. But
getting every employee on board is often a challenge. What can you do to
increase early and rapid adoption? How can you incentivize and reward employees
who use it? And should you reprimand those who don t?
What the Experts Say
According to a study by MIT Sloan Management Review and Capgemini Consulting,
the vast majority of managers believe that achieving digital transformation is
critical to their organizations. However, 63% said the pace of technological
change in their workplaces is too slow, primarily due to a lack of urgency
and poor communication about the strategic benefits of new tools. Employees
need to understand why [the new technology] is an improvement from what they
had before, says Didier Bonnet, coauthor of Leading Digital and Global
Practice Leader at Capgemini Consulting, who worked on the research and
coauthored the study. The job of a manager is to help people cross the bridge
to get them comfortable with the technology, to get them using it, and to
help them understand how it makes their lives better.
Leaders should expect to face luddites, people who aren t naturally tech-savvy,
and naysayers whose knee-jerk reaction is to oppose new things. There are
always some people who have their routines, and they just don t want to change,
says Michael C. Mankins, a partner in Bain & Company s San Francisco office
and the leader of the firm s organization practice in the Americas. That
[attitude] persists as long as the organization permits it. Here are some
ideas for encouraging the adoption of a new technology.
Choose technology wisely
When you re shopping around for a new technology be it a customer
relationship management (CRM) program or software to better manage employee
timesheets bear your team s interests in mind. Functionality is critical, but
so is user-friendliness. If your goal is a high adoption rate within the
organization, make sure you re choosing the most approachable, most intuitive
system possible, says Mankins. Technologies that require multi-day training
programs and hefty user manuals are a surefire recipe for employee bellyaching
and a stalled adoption. Bonnet suggests running comparative pilots of various
technologies to ensure you re choosing the right one. Encourage your team to
do trials, get feedback from users, and learn from that before you take the
jump, he says.
State your case
Persuading your team to adopt a new technology requires putting forth a
compelling vision for what the technology is and what it s going to do, says
Bonnet. First, you must demonstrate the new service offers economic and
rational benefits for the organization and the individual, says Mankins.
Perhaps it will help the company quantify its marketing efforts; maybe it will
enable employees to track customer data more easily. Help employees understand
what s in it for them, he adds. Will it enable salespeople to meet their quotas
faster which gives them the opportunity to make more money? Or increase
productivity in a way that reduces weekend work? The best argument for a new
technology is that it will make your life better, Mankins explains.
Customize training
Because familiarity with and interest in digital technology varies widely
among employees, your training efforts should reflect those differences, says
Bonnet. Some employees might prefer an online training session; others might
need a bit more handholding and support in the form of a personal coach. You
don t want to send people who are tech-savvy on a course because that s a waste
of time, he says. Instead, ask your team members what kind of training they
re most comfortable with. During the instruction phase, it s important that
you lead by example, he adds. Show that you are investing time in learning
the new system. Show your humility and empathize with your team about the
challenges you re all facing.
Get influencers onboard
In the early stages of the launch, focus on getting a network of champions
fully invested in the new technology, so they can coach others on how to use
the tools to their benefit, says Bonnet. This group of evangelists should
replicate the organization and include your star performers. Don t just pick
the geeks those who are most interested in technology, says Bonnet. You
want people who are able to work horizontally across the organization and who
have good communication and networking skills. It s most important not that
early adopters adopt, but that influencers adopt, Mankins emphasizes. Getting
those folks on board early is critical.
Make it routine
As soon as reasonably possible, try to institutionalize the new technology
and show employees that you are transitioning from the old way of working to
the new one, says Bonnet. Make the technology part of the routine of the way
the place works, adds Mankins. If, for instance, you ve recently introduced a
new sales-tracking technology, start asking for weekly updates on the numbers.
Of course, employees could still use provide the information without using the
new system, but it would be more cumbersome and time-consuming. The goal, says
Mankins, is to implicitly raise the cost of not using the new technology.
Highlight quick wins
Once employees begin to use the technology more and more, draw attention to the
positive impact it s having on your organization. Publicizing quick wins helps
build a case for change and encourages further adoption, says Mankins.
Emphasize individual gains, too. Say, Ted uses this technology and he s been
able to retire his quota in 10 months rather than a year, says Mankins.
Depending on the size and scale of the rollout, you might consider enlisting
help in getting the word out about the early successes. Leverage [your company
s] marketing department to communicate and disseminate that message.
Make it fun
Rewarding the behavior you want to see is much more effective than penalizing
the behavior you don t want to see, says Mankins. You ll need to know which
employees are adopting the technology and which kind of rewards means the most
to them. Is it compensation, perks, recognition, or the ability to innovate
faster? Bonnet suggests experimenting with gamification to make it fun and
create a bit of buzz around the technology and motivate and engage people.
Employees might accumulate points, gain financial incentives, or achieve new
levels of status.
Consider penalties
If you re still having a hard time getting your team on board, consider
instituting penalties for non-use. It depends on how damaging it is to the
organization to have resistors, says Bonnet. At a certain point, [lack of
adoption] becomes an issue of productivity and the bottom line. Let s say, for
instance, members of your sales team are especially resistant to the new
technology. Mankins suggests telling them that only data entered into the new
system will count toward their quota. He adds that, although penalties like
these can be effective, they should be used as a last resort. They re a blunt
instrument, he explains, and they reinforce the notion that the new
technology is a hassle.
Principles to Remember
Do
Win hearts and minds by emphasizing how the new technology benefits the
organization and makes employees lives easier
Encourage adoption by rewarding employees in ways that are most meaningful to
them
Build the new technology into the routines and rhythms of the workday as soon
as possible
Don t
Pick a technology that s more complicated than it needs to be; for a swift
adoption, select a system that s approachable and intuitive
Overlook the importance of getting your most influential employees on board
early in the process; they will help you bring around others
Leap to punish employees who don t use the technology; penalties should be a
last resort if incentives and rewards aren t working
Case Study #1: Focus on communication and training
Jill Mizrachy, a senior director at Booz Allen Hamilton and a senior associate
in learning development at the firm, acknowledges that it s a challenge to
introduce new technologies to employees. Folks are more and more dispersed,
she says, and we have younger people who ve grown up with the internet as well
as older team members who are less comfortable with new technology.
When Booz Allen began rolling out its new cloud-based computer system
(internally known as The Zone ), Jill knew that high-quality communication and
training would be critical.
She first enlisted the help of a colleague in communications to assist her with
messaging. We wanted to explain what s changing, what s in it for them, and we
wanted to create a cool factor, she explains. The biggest questions we get
from people are, How does this affect me? and How will it change the way I
work?
Before the launch, Jill also ran early sessions with a variety of senior
employees from different departments, and geographies. They became a cadre of
ambassadors, who could help get other employees comfortable with the new
technology.
During launch week, the group stood in the lobbies of their respective offices
to greet employees and hand out pamphlets with links to the new system and tips
on how to use it.
Employees were able to choose from a variety of training options, including
regularly scheduled live demonstrations of the new system, online recordings of
those live demonstrations and an interactive social media tool where they could
pose questions to an expert in real time.
So far, employee adoption of The Zone is proceeding at a steady pace. This is
Phase One and there s more to come, Jill says. There s a lot of excitement
about it.
Case Study #2: Gamify adoption to make it fun and engaging
A few years ago, William Vanderbloemen, the founder and CEO of Vanderbloemen
Search Group which specializes in executive recruitment for large and
mid-sized churches wanted to implement a new technology that would help his
organization improve sales.
Bearing in mind his employees technological know-how, he researched his
options then spent a few months test-driving them. He finally settled on
Hubspot, the inbound marketing software that helps businesses generate sales
leads through the creation of website content. When I saw how intuitive it was
and how seamlessly it interfaced with Salesforce [his firm s CRM platform], I
was sold, he explains. I wanted to sell others, too.
His first priorities involved laying out a vision for the future and
providing an explanation for how the new technology would improve the business.
I told [my team] that the days of cold calling and door-to-door salesmen were
dead. I told them that there was a seismic shift happening in communication and
marketing and that we had an opportunity to be on the front end, he says.
With only five employees at the time, he decided against a formal training
program. Instead, his team members learned how to use it by shadowing him.
They learned by osmosis, he says. I wanted to lead by example and show them
that I was involved and that we were in this together.
As the organization grew and began hiring more people who needed to use
Hubspot, William instituted a contest to encourage fast adoption. The employee
who generated the most internet traffic from a single piece of online content
over a month-long period won two first-class airline tickets anywhere in the
U.S. It was a way to make it fun for people and also a way for us to unearth
the folks we didn t know were experts, he says. Now I have those people
teaching others how to do it.
Rebecca Knight is a freelance journalist in Boston. She has been published in
The New York Times, USA Today, The Financial Times, and The Economist.