It is January 2019, and like many an optimistic person, IT companies like us make up their list of resolutions. Much like the ‘lose more weight – eat better – exercise more – be healthier’ resolution for millions around the world, the same resolve pops up annually for us– without fail – but in different shapes and forms. Our recurring promise to ourselves has always been “this year we will build/launch/promote/update our intranet.” This promise appeared at the top of the list every year – except for the last two.
Sadly, by the second quarter, this resolution would have fallen by the wayside. There was always a good reason why the intranet could not be prioritized – our technical team members were engaged in meaningful projects, our intranet ‘admin’ had changed positions or jobs, the content was not being updated; hence no one was accessing it… The reasons were plenty, and the result was the same: our intranet project was dead, or dying.
As an IT company that has implemented more than its fair share of internal portals (or intranets) for medium to large organizations, we know one thing: Intranets fail. No matter how much money is spent on them – from a few thousand to hundreds of thousands of dollars – intranets do not bring about their promised ‘return on investment.’
In theory, the concept is a solid one – creating an internal portal connecting employees, essential company data, calendars, events, updates seem like a win-win situation all around. Logically, organizations should be ready to update the content; employees keen to access it. But that is hardly ever the way it works.
After spending hundreds of thousands on ‘ready-made’ portals, organizations find that these solutions sit on a virtual shelf, collecting virtual dust because they poorly designed and rarely updated that employees find them unworthy of their time and effort, or so complicated and full of information that they overwhelm and confuse.
Our intranet was a classic example of the latter. On designing it, we decided we wanted everything this ready solution could offer – calendars, events, document management, advanced search, message boards, the works. Our logic was that as an IT company if we don’t use it all, who will?
As it turned out, no one did use it. We had a couple of die-hard portal fans who insisted it made life more comfortable, but the majority of employees either accessed it once and forgot how to do it again, or accessed it only when they occasionally received an email about something they could find on it.
Here we list the top reasons why intranets fail:
Then again, not all intranets fail. Some organizations boast of relatively good usage numbers, often due to ‘intranet policies’ which are rules or regulations put in place to guarantee some traffic. But is your intranet successful if you need to force traffic in its direction?
So what do you do with your current, sickly intranet? Do you invest even more into it by trying to make it more engaging or creating a ‘mobile interface’? You could – but is it worth it?
After years of trying to breathe life into ours, we decided it was time to cut our losses and identify precisely what we wanted this intranet to achieve. After all, was said and done, we knew what we wanted: a place to host critical organizational data, and disseminate necessary information. It was that simple.
We let the intranet die a slow, inevitable death. For the content we needed, we created a clean, minimalistic information library that made access to data easy, straightforward, and quick. Our focus was on documents, videos, and learning content. We connected this library to iDenedi, our mobile announcement, and engagement application, and the company was able to easily share content using cellular triggers, make important announcements, and engage with employees and partners in a way that was quick, secure, and fun. As an uncalculated side benefit, we found employees were also engaging more with each other.
In summary, if your intranet is not what you wanted it to be – you are not alone. Let it go and give some thought into what you need. You will likely discover that what you need is a lot simpler than what you already have.
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Originally published Jan 20, 2019 12:50:03 PM, updated July 24, 2019
Topics: E-Learning Technadopt
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New technologies like mobile devices, smartphone apps, or cloud-based solutions have changed the B2B playing field in the past two decades.
Implementing these new software solutions has been dramatically simplified, with little or no technology resources required.
But while operational, financial, and HR systems promise everything from better resource and time management to lower costs, the tools and solutions themselves, don’t actually do all the work. It’s the people using them that define the success for a new IT technology at an organisation.
When adopting a new technology– you need to plan, identify and address implementation challenges early. The work does not stop here. Management team responsible for the change needs to drive engagement, enhance efficiencies and improve user adoption – enabling you to maximise your return on investment.
Otherwise, your technology is just an expensive tool that none of your employees use effectively.
Often technology teams choose a specific technology based on the recognition of the vendor and brand (ie. SAP, Microsoft, Oracle), and not because it is necessarily the best solution for their business and team’s goals.
When choosing a new technology to implement for your organisation don’t just look for a popular brand name or the price. Carefully assess your strategy.
Think about how this new IT solution will help you achieve your strategic goals. Will it help your team and make their tasks easier? After all, the purpose of introducing a new solution is to improve business performance.
When looking for a new technology, start with the goals you want to achieve, and then plan backwards to find a technology that best supports those goals.
People are more likely to adopt new technology if they can see how it helps them to achieve their goals and objectives.
You may also be interested in: How to Find the Right Software and Save More With Digital Transformation
Software upgrades or introducing new technologies carry compatibility risks. Your new systems may turn out to be incompatible with existing systems or the integration may require more effort than expected.
To prevent these possible issues, make sure to review all your current IT solutions thoroughly before deploying anything new. Don’t just gather detailed requirements for the new technology. Also check whether the functionality of your current software can support and integrate effectively with your new IT solution. Performing this audit upfront will prevent system redundancies, reduce costly build times, and keep you on the budget.
Support from the management when introducing a new IT solution is critical. In fact, lack of management support is often the primary reason an implementation fails in an organisation.
The most successful implementations are typically driven by a technology champion who takes complete ownership for communications, issue resolution, and avoidance. This individual should ideally have an authority within the organisation. This champion should also be empowered to make decisions, and be accountable over the success of the initiative.
In addition, key management should stay on top of the new program. Email updates to these important roles are not enough. Other stakeholders in operations, administrations, or executive directors should also be familiar with the technology to have insight into the value to be gained by it.
Managers should make sure that everyone at the organisation understands what’s coming next before it gets there. Responsible management team should set expectations for how the technology will affect each and every person involved.
Get your employees well prepared for the new tools in advance and make sure they understand its value to the workflow and processes. Answer all their potential questions - how will their jobs change? What are their new responsibilities with the tool? How soon can they expect to see the benefits?
Management should hold a kick-off meeting with key stakeholders to define the upcoming changes, reinforce the reasons the technology is being adopted, and clearly outline the roles and responsibilities for everyone involved.
One of the biggest risks to employee adoption is lack of adequate and customised training.
Many software vendors offer training as part of the purchase package, however, most of this training is generic and not specific to your business processes.
Specific product training should be more than just a series of screenshots and PowerPoint presentation. Your employees need to see and play in the system, prior to go-live, in the context of their specific work processes.
To increase adoption chances, make sure that training is specific to each group and their workflows.
Not everyone learns and adapts a new technology in the same way. Offer multiple training methods – electronic, classroom, smaller hands-on training labs – various options ensure users feel most prepared.
You May Be Interested In: Employee Engagement- Why It Matters
It is critical to closely work with the software vendor at the very beginning of the partnership to identify and agree upon expected results.
Management should be realistic in expectations. They should continually monitor progress toward the goals of the technology initiative and understand where tweaks are needed. What kind of measurable impact does the technology delivers? Is it living up to expectations? If not, understand why and take measures to fix the gaps.
In addition, management should work with their technology partners in tracking important milestones. Management should make an effort to speed up the time between training and go-live, avoiding any prolonged gaps that could put adoption at risk.
Gather feedback from users at the beginning and then two weeks into the implementation. If adoption isn’t going as well as hoped, work with the technology partner to find out why and identify what can be improved.
Management should also demand a quarterly review with the technology partner to check progress toward deployment milestones and the value achieved. This can provide for short-term course corrections and good visibility into the success of the project. After all, continuous improvement is a core part of every successful technology adoption.
In conclusion, successful technology adoption requires a foundation of motivated people, processes, management commitment, and best practices to deliver the benefits of a solution that it promises to deliver.
Ongoing support, best practices, and successful services from the technology vendors along with internal teams and processes are just as important as the new products themselves.
Did you recently invest in a new IT solution? We can help your team come around the technology adoption challenges.
Start here to check out our TAP aka Technology Adoption Program for your organisation.
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So you have invested in a cool new IT technology for your business. All is going great, except...your employees are not using it yet. 😥
Employee adoption is one of the biggest challenges in digital transformation for any organisation. Getting new software into your organisation can boost your entire business' operations. It can increase productivity, generate more leads, improve customer service and help the C-suite make better decisions.
Employees are the key to adopt new technology and to the successful digital transformation of your organisation. The sooner the new technology becomes part of the day to day work routine in your organisation, the better.
Make sure that you inform your employees properly of all the advantage of the new technology. Will this new tool save them time (or nerves), will it boost their productivity? Or will it alleviate their stress job-related and make their work-flow more efficient?
Paint a detailed picture for them because they probably will not know this at an early stage. Once they become aware of all the benefits associated with the new software, they will be more likely to get on board.
Humans are creatures of habit. It is not as easy as you may think for some of us to adopt new tools and gadgets. This especially true if your team has been working with the same workflow and tools for the past several years.
So before giving them deadlines or ultimatums, put yourself in their shoes. Consider their age and general attitude towards change. Are they young and grew up with digital technology? Or are they enthusiastic about new technologies? Based on this information create the best possible plan and timeline for the adoption of the new IT technology.
You may notice that each employee may have a different speed of adopting and becoming proficient with the new system. And that's okay. Just make sure to give your team a reasonable timeline to switch over to the new tool.
Find a team member who is known to be great with new technology and assign them the role of a champion. Seek their help in promoting, training and gathering employee feedback on the new software.
Having a relatable influencer can positively impact the attitudes of the employees and help them transition in a much easier way.
Encourage your team members to train and adopt the new tool. Reward those that do adapt quickly and use the new technology at work. These incentives can be gift cards, perks, swag, or anything that really excites the employees about the new transformation.
In conclusion, introducing new technology to your team can be demanding and difficult, especially when it comes time to motivate employees to use it. But with a little tact, patience and empathy you and your team can get there. Besides this, don't forget to make it a fun process for your team. And they will reward you with cooperating and getting on board with you and the new technology.
Are you currently struggling to implement new technologies in your company?
Learn how Exceeders' Technology Adoption Program (Ta7awul) can help your employees get on board with the new technology at your organisation.
Exceeders: Connecting businesses with hundreds of innovative IT providers for cost-effective digital transformation.
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There is no doubt regarding the tremendous impact technology has on companies around the world. The use of technology have opened up a whole new world of insight and possibilities for these companies helping them gain deeper insight into their customers, improve their products and services, optimize their operations and more. However, the introduction of new technology isn’t easy, and usually is met with a lot of resistance from employees who are used to and comfortable doing their work in a specific way that they don’t fancy changing.
As per Wikipedia Technology Adoption is defined as a sociological model that describes the adoption or acceptance of a new product or innovation, according to the demographic and psychological characteristics of defined adopter groups.
What that means in english is that whenever a company introduces a new technology into the work culture it should take into account that not all of its employees are the same. And in order to gain the maximum benefit of this technology it should customize its launch approach to suit the different types of employees in the company.
Most often these companies implement new technologies and build a standard one size fits all launch program that treats all employees alike resulting in resistance, low usage and very low return on investment.
To build a proper technology adoption program that minimizes resistance, promotes change and increases the return on investment from technology the first thing companies need to do is understand the different adopter groups that their employees fall under which are:
With the above being said, it should be clear that one size doesn’t fit everyone, and for a company to successfully launch new technologies it must personalize and customize it’s approach of introducing technology and innovation in the workplace. Below is a list of some (but not all) options that companies can adopt per user group to successfully launch new technology and innovations:
For companies to get the most value of the technology they invest in, they need to make sure they launch it in the best way possible that entices employees to adopt it as fast as possible. In subsequent articles we will be going over building and launching technology adoption plans, moreover we will cover some scenarios, examples and best practices based on our experience.
If you are interested in someone helping you with launching new products in your environment and building a technology adoption culture, please visit Ta7awul.
