It is obvious today that the way the modern workplace functions have changed and many of these changes are here to stay. In the past year businesses have had to make drastic shifts in the ways that they interact with both employees and customers. Business leaders are having to adopt new software to keep up with these changes. In fact, digital transformation is a high priority for many businesses this year. 77% of CLO’s in a recent survey shared that digital transformation is their number one priority for 2021 (1).
However, implementing new digital solutions to solve modern challenges is not enough. High rates of enterprise software adoption is needed for success. Fortunately, quality employee training programs that focus on driving adoption can significantly improve the long-term success of an organization’s digital transformation. In this blog post we share tips and strategies you can use to leverage employee training to drive successful software adoption.
Approaching Software Adoption as a Learning Journey
One of the biggest mistakes an organization can make when they develop user adoption strategies is to think of training as a singular event. Software implementation and successful adoption is a process that occurs over time. Employees must first develop a basic understanding of a program and become comfortable before becoming expert users. There are three different ways you can develop a learning journey that will effectively guide employees through the stages of product adoption.
- Utilizing a Blended Strategy
Developing a digital adoption strategy that uses a blend of training methods can significantly improve your programs success. Integrating training methods that are social, formal and experiential can engage employees with varying learning styles and preferences. Integrating support materials employees can use on the job can also increase knowledge retention.
Breaking down complex information and topics into memorable bite sized segments with microlearning can greatly improve the success of your software adoption plans. Information overload is a common challenge L&D professionals face when developing employee training programs. Breaking down training content s into smaller segments can help prevent information overload as well as increase engagement and knowledge retention. Microlearning also makes it easier for employees to fit training into their busy schedules because they take just minutes to complete.
It is common for enterprise applications to be utilized in different ways by different departments or job roles. This means the information different employees need to know to successfully use the program also varies. In these cases, developing personalized journeys or learning paths for these different roles can ensure that individual users are learning the information that is most relevant to them. This can prevent frustration as well as increase the speed of training.
Tips to Increase Training Effectiveness and Reduce Resistance to Change
Resistance to change is one of the biggest barriers to successful software adoption, but there are several different ways you can prevent resistance. There are steps that can be taken in a training program to help employees feel more comfortable with the new program you are implementing.
- Highlighting Program Benefits
The most effective training programs clearly communicate and highlight the benefits of the new software. Be sure that your communications plan for your program highlights the benefits of the new program or tool you are introducing. Explaining how the software can make their jobs easier, faster or save them time is a great way to build excitement around both the software and training program.
- Opportunities to Practice
Another way to increase user adoption rates is by providing many opportunities for employees to practice what they learn. Practicing before they use the program in real life on the job will help employees gain confidence beforehand. This can be done with in person practice sessions or through eLearning training methods such as scenario-based learning.
Scenario-based learning allows employees to practice new skills online by working through a life like scenario. This form of training helps employees with location restrictions learn in a risk-free environment online before they practice using the system on the job. This form of training is especially useful due to its ability to build context around each training topic.
End Note
Software adoption programs will become essential for organizations who are looking to undergo major digital transformations and the adoption of new technology is only expected to increase in the future. According BCC Research, the SaaS market is in the process of increasing from $44.4 billion in 2017 to $94.9 billion by 2022 (2).
Learn more about how Infopro Learning assisted a leading organization in the life sciences industry with their recent digital transformation and read the case study, Digital Software Adoption Training.
