5 Strategies to Ensure Successful User Adoption of New Technologies

Technology is critical to every single business. It can lead to increased efficiency, higher productivity levels, a competitive advantage over others in your industry, enhanced cybersecurity, happier employees and so much more. 

The problem is, when you implement new technology into your organization’s processes you are disrupting the daily routine of your team. Your employees will have to change their processes, they’ll need to use new tools to complete their work and their day-to-day tasks are different.

Despite the huge benefits that new technologies bring to your organization and your team, sudden changes can be met with frustration and resistance. 

Without buy-in from your team, this all just sounds like more work for your employees. If you don’t proactively address these feelings, your team won’t optimize the technologies you’ve invested in.

To realize true ROI from these technologies, you simply must get your team on board - and that requires successful user adoption.

To help you do just that, OT Group has listed five strategies your business should use to help your employees embrace new technologies and the different processes that come with that investment.

It’s important not just to implement new technologies because you’ve heard they might benefit your organization. In fact, all too often companies invest in new technologies based purely on brand recognition. 

New technologies should be closely related to your business strategy. When employees know exactly how new technology will help your business achieve its strategic goals (as well as their own personal goals), they are far more likely to use it. 

The biggest risk to successful user adoption is a lack of sufficient training for employees. If your team doesn’t know how new technologies work and how they apply to their jobs, then you can’t reasonably expect them to just pick them up. 

With any new technology, training should be part of the implementation process. An in-depth training program should be followed prior to the launch of the technology, and then ongoing training should take place to ensure both new and existing employees optimize how they use the technology. 

To truly optimize new technologies and drive user adoption, it’s crucial that you gain buy-in from all stakeholders within your organization who will be using, managing or overseeing the technology. Everyone involved in using the technology in some form must understand and appreciate why it has been implemented. 

This starts with education. Your entire team will be far more likely to support and use new technologies when they understand how to use them, how it benefits their own personal jobs and how it helps the entire organization grow. 

Not every employee within your team has the same level of technological proficiency. Some members of your team may require more training than others, and that’s perfectly fine. You just might need to create a personalized training program to ensure they successfully adopt any new technologies. 

Instead of generic meeting room training, these employees may need one-to-one sessions. Take one hour where an expert in the technology can go through and teach these employees exactly how it applies to their role, how they can use it to improve their day-to-day tasks and give them a tutorial of the functionalities the technology has. 

After technology implementation, team training, onboarding, and initial use there’s likely going to be some members of your team who won’t fully embrace the new technology - or maybe the technology isn’t working as expected. 

Create a plan to evaluate your technology. Ongoing evaluation of your technology and user adoption rates will give your business the information it needs to drive continuous progress and growth.

Interested in learning more about optimizing your technologies for better business growth? Contact OT Group today. We offer IT services, IT consulting and IT support in South East Ontario, from Toronto to Ottawa.