How exciting – our organization is ready to introduce new technologies into your workspace! You’ve thought about the benefits your new project management tools and DAMs will bring and your teams are scheduled to start their onboarding journeys. You’ve even reviewed and thought about the hardware requirements that may still be required, but have you thought about your wetware – the human beings – inside your organization?
If you want your business to be agile and successful in adopting the new systems that are being introduced, you’ll also need human beings who can adapt to change. But what do these adaptive digital skills look like? They may be more commonplace and low-tech than you think. Here’s the WNDYR guide to cultivating a more digitally agile workplace:
It is easy to get caught up in the pressure of having to adopt new systems and software effortlessly and have each staff member welcome the change.
The reality, however, is that people only tend to embrace technologies that actually assist them to achieve concrete and valued goals – this is why it is so important to discuss goals with your onboarding consultant. By doing this, you ensure that everyone adopting the new software shares these overall goals while understanding how their own individual goals fit within.
To ensure that stasis (or tech-phobia) doesn’t discourage people from adopting technologies that can be valuable to them, be clear in communicating the specific benefits, problems or situations the new technology is meant to address.
Your employees’ adoption process should start by having them consider the specific goals they want from the technology – if you know the specific goals of your team, you will also be able to guide your consultant in how your team does work, which will go a long way towards ensuring a successful onboarding process.
No matter how much collaborative tools like MediaValet or Wrike can help, it’s important to remember that if your employees don’t know how to ‘play nicely’ together, having the tools to communicate is not going to counter tendencies such as resisting to share progress with or hoarding knowledge from one another.
Your organization will only be able to make effective use of collaboration software if you cultivate a culture of mutual trust and reward team effort as much as individual contribution.
Even the most co-operative teams may have players who have difficulty sharing: assist these employees to build their collaborative capacity by encouraging them to share in smaller ways, and to expand their use of collaboration tools as they get comfortable sharing what they know. Make them your champions and reward and praise collaborative efforts made.
With many organizations moving the majority of their communication online, many of us have seen the rise of a new work challenge – frequent communication misunderstandings that happen online. To make things worse, many teams increasingly struggle with their lack of skills to clear the air offline.
Help your employees build their capacity for effective online communication with workshops and resources that highlight the differences between online and offline communication, like the potential for misunderstanding and offence. We at WNDYR are big fans of working around different Workstyles which also includes guidelines on communication between different workstyles – we encourage you and your team to take our test here.
Hone a culture of understanding for differences in online communication style and teach employees to take conversations offline (ideally face-to-face, or failing that, by phone) as soon as there’s any tension or enmity.
Learning how to use new technology is a skill in and of itself. Most tech enthusiasts and early adopters actively enjoy the process of learning a new tech skill—but not everybody will find learning a new software platform fun.
It can be helpful for employees to recognize that there are different learning styles; if they’re able to find their own preferred approach, it will result in an easier and more fun adoption. While some people would prefer to enjoy reading manuals or watching tutorial videos, others prefer to diving in and looking up instructions only as they need them.
Sharing a prefered style of learning with an onboarding consultant can be extremely beneficial. The team’s onboarding consultant can leverage this knowledge to deliver a more engaging process and will help your team members get more comfortable with the adoption process.
While there are lots of practical skills that can affect successful adoption in the workplace, few things have a bigger impact than cultivating a playful attitude towards technology. Employees who actually enjoy using their computers and devices — employees who think of them as toys — are a lot more likely to embrace opportunities to use those toys more effectively.
Add some humour and play into your office tools — for example, by giving your projects playful names – is a great way to introduce some playfulness; even famously serious organisations like NASA have recognised the importance of humour in the workplace. Encouraging your employees to explore ways that new tech supports their personal interests and hobbies will result in people associating technology with fun and not just with reports, workflow and presentations. The stronger the link, the more likely it is that your team will be able to embrace tech innovation.
If you are ready to introduce new technologies and systems into your organization, ensuring that your employees have the right soft skills to make your software onboarding a success is actually easier than you may think, especially with the right onboarding partner.
Our solution designers and implementation consultants can help you rethink the way your organisation does work. Contact Prasoon Ranjan, our VP of Customer Success to find out more.