It’s early on a Monday morning and you are sitting in the office staring at the login screen of a new system that you will have spent hours researching, days of meeting with sales people and weeks of project time, with you being carried through by coffee and the knowledge it will make things better. After all this time you’re ready to hit the “on switch”, however is everyone else ready?
New technology, and the new processes that come with it, can be a great way to increase efficiency across an organisation, however they are often one of the hardest things to introduce to an end user. The fact is people in general don’t like change, especially when that change might affect what they perceive as the best way to work, which is obviously in their mind how they are working right now. Who are you to try to tell them otherwise?
To get over this “wall of unwillingness” it's best to plan out some simple steps that will help to get people engaged.
Regardless of the size of your company it can still be odd to find out that people don’t know what systems they actually use! So before you expect people to use a system, they need to know about it, and the earlier you can start to involve them, the more ready they will be to handle the change. This starts with simply introducing the new technology and why it was selected, the benefits which will be felt - not just to the company but by the end users - and how all of this will come together to help everyone reach their objectives in a more efficient way.
This doesn’t mean just shout and threaten people till you’re red in the face to use the system (although it may feel like the only option with some individuals). It’s much easier to get some good word going around about the system by getting people to listen to other users to lead the way. You can call these people your “champions” or “trend setters” or a host of other terms; all that really counts is that they are at every level of the business to help others understand the benefits and want to lead people into a better way of doing things. These are the people that you will want to spend time showing systems at the earliest time possible and maybe even having as part of the implementation so they feel connected from the very start, and have them know every advantage it brings.
As simple as it sounds this is often the hardest part – training can be laborious, and seen as a one-off need to show people a new system and just let them get on with it. I’m not going to try and explain how to conduct training in this article, however it’s worth pointing out that the training sessions are just the first step on getting people to learn about a system. Once a system has been introduced, it’s worth following up with Q&A sessions for those that might not have got everything the first time round, have the “champions” pick up users who are having issues and help guide them through the process again. Most importantly make use of the resources that your new system partner can bring to help, either though providing materials, train the trainer sessions or videos to make sure that your workforce has a strong understanding of the products they are using.
Once you are at this stage it’s a case of keeping up the use of the new system and working with your partner supplier to help deal with issues that are raised by the users to help keep the momentum going.
At DaXtra we are committed to giving in-depth training to all clients; by using our technology they are able to automate their recruitment process so they can focus on what really matters: attracting a strong stable of clients and placing the best candidates.
By Peter Roberts, Account Manager, DaXtra Technologies