What do people do with new company technology without help?
Nothing.
They will use it incorrectly, be miserable with a new forced change, or even find any way not to use it. They’ll especially never figure out how to use it fully. It’ll become another barrier to them doing their job and another piece of failed technology.
The worst part? The IT department gets a bad reputation with another fumbled rollout of their ill-prepared digital transformation roadmap. New technology and the department it’s attached to get a bad reputation, and the gains leaders envision aren’t realized.
A fumbled launch of a new piece of software will likely result in confusion, frustration, and a noticeable dip in morale. However, there are ways to avoid these failures and ensure employees have the tools to properly adopt new technology.
Those tools are likely not user guides, live training (except in moderation), or even just sending them some content. No, a more guided approach and someone who knows something about helping employees learn is necessary.
Training is one of the most essential things to account for in a digital transformation roadmap.
A successful digital transformation relies on training, an essential part of the roadmap. Training is not simply something you pencil in at the end after the tools are ready to launch. No, it should be in the plan from the beginning.
That means the cost should be factored in, and the training experts should be included in the conversation to ensure a smooth project and employee transition timeline.
The roadmap should account for every step of the process to ensure a company’s successful transition into the digital era. Technology itself is only part of the transition; people are the other part and the most difficult to get right. If people aren’t accounted for in the change, then change is as good as a failure.
Ambitious plans can quickly crumble without equipping employees with the knowledge and skills to navigate new digital tools and processes.
Ensuring comprehensive training isn’t just a checkbox on a to-do list; it’s the backbone of a successful digital transformation. This post explains why training is indispensable for a company’s digital journey and explores strategies for seamlessly integrating it into your roadmap.
The Importance of Training in Digital Transformation
Training plays one of the single most important roles in the success of any digital transformation roadmap. Paired with communication and an outspoken leader, training can help lead people through even the most complex changes.
Training is the foundation of a digital transformation strategy. Without proper training, teams may struggle to adapt to new technologies and processes, leading to inefficiencies, mistakes, and missed opportunities.
These are important reasons why training should be a top priority for every digital transformation roadmap.
Maximize the Potential of Technology
Investing in new digital tools and platforms is pointless if your employees don’t know how to use them effectively. Training ensures that your team understands the capabilities of these technologies and can use them properly.
That means less time figuring things out for themselves, and employees can hit the ground running when ready. What would you rather have, someone who fumbles their way through a new tool or can use it properly from day one?
This increases productivity and allows you to extract maximum value from your investments. Every digital transformation effort aims to improve company efficiency and save money. That can’t happen without maximizing technology’s potential.
Boosting Employee Confidence
Change can be intimidating, especially when it involves adopting unfamiliar technologies. Some employees are more confident with technology than others, so you can’t assume everyone will be able to pick things up seamlessly.
Proper training instills confidence in less techie employees by equipping them with what they need to seamlessly navigate transitioning to a new tool. When employees feel confident in their abilities, they’re more likely to embrace change and contribute actively to the transformation process.
Not to mention, employees are a lot happier if they get the needed support and know what to do. That means employees are likely to stick around longer—a win-win.
Enhancing Efficiency and Productivity
Digital transformation often involves streamlining processes and improving how employees do their work, among many other likely goals. However, without proper training, employees may struggle to adapt to these changes or utilize tools effectively.
Training helps bridge this gap by teaching employees how to work efficiently within the new digital ecosystem, resulting in improved productivity across the organization. How employees figure out how to make things work isn’t always the best way. Training can tap into subject matter experts who can provide the best way to accomplish certain tasks. That means increased efficiency and productivity.
Risks of Neglecting Training in Your Roadmap
Neglecting training in your digital transformation roadmap can have serious consequences for your organization’s success. For every positive from tending to training, there are multiple negatives when training isn’t provided or is insufficient.
If a failed digital transformation effort isn’t enough of a risk, then I’ve got a few more for you. No training or poor quality training can lead to the following failures for employees adopting new company technology.
- Change Resistance: Most people hate change and won’t do it unless they see its immediate benefit. This resistance will hinder progress and widen the divide between the digitally savvy and those who are not.
- Errors & Inefficiencies: With new technology comes new ways of doing things. If employees don’t know how to do them, then that often leads to mistakes, errors, inefficiencies, and more. If they’re not trained, people may not even care to do the right thing. Why should an employee care if the workplace doesn’t care?
- Missed Opportunities: Growth only happens when projects are successful, including digital transformation projects. Employees without the right knowledge means a company is missing out on the opportunities digital transformation aims to provide.
When training isn’t properly accounted for, digital transformation can face many other risks. We work with companies to account for these risks and ensure employees are successful at their jobs with new technology. Training minimizes the risk of failure and maximizes the likelihood of success.
But training isn’t something you throw employees into a class for four hours to accomplish. Many different factors must be taken into consideration. Ensuring employees are offered helpful training is challenging, but it’s not impossible to achieve with the right planning.
What Training Should Account For
Successful technical training for digital transformations has several parts. These should be accounted for when creating training that will be successful.
Employee Needs
Training will never be successful if you don’t know what employees need. Everything is never the answer, either, which is why we say nothing is important if everything’s important. Understanding employee’s needs requires understanding their skill gap and providing good performance objectives (not learning objectives).
Knowing the needs of employees is the first step to ensure they’re trained properly.
Without a deep understanding of employees’ needs, training will never succeed. That means talking to employees, getting their points of view, and understanding what the experts think employees need to know.
Tailored Training
There are many ways to customize training for each employee—well, maybe not every employee. Sometimes, it’s perfectly fine to tailor training based on broader audience requirements. What does that mean?
The audience can be sliced and diced in several ways, each unique for every organization and project. For instance, training could be customized by role to reflect how each role uses a new tool.
This is one example of how training can be tailored to employees, but there are many ways to accomplish tailored training, each unique to the specific needs of employees.
Accessible & Easy
If training isn’t easy to use, then it’s as good as useless. That means it should be easy to find and use if it’s a course. They should be easily searchable and quick to open if you’re talking about resources. If employees must click five times to access a resource, they’ll likely never use it.
Learning from the training should also be easy. That means it shouldn’t be an obscure presentation with screenshots from software. Employees should be able to apply what they learned more directly without needing to figure out how to do so. An effective software simulation is one way to achieve this successfully.
Continuous Learning
Employees should always have easy ways to continue learning about the tool and improving their workflow. That might mean giving them resources with regular updates, such as a resource center for the specific tool.
Continuous learning might also mean creating a community on your enterprise social network. A community is a good place for experts to provide direct support and answers to commonly asked questions. That means the answers are public and easy for others to find.
What it comes down to is that training shouldn’t be a one-time event. Whether it’s a software simulation or an introductory video that employees receive for training, they should also be given options to further their skills and find help for specific questions that arise as they use the software.
Wrap Up
Without thoroughly and properly accounted for training in your digital training roadmap, there’s little chance of success. Not accounting for the people side of change is a recipe for disaster.
Quality training that’s just the right amount equips people with the knowledge, skills, and confidence they need to navigate the digital landscape effectively. By prioritizing training, the potential of new technology can be maximized.
Well-trained employees will be ready to use new company technology with enhanced efficiency and productivity and will be able to capitalize on opportunities for innovation and growth. Be sure to understand employees’ needs, tailor training most effectively, make it accessible and easy, and enable continuous learning.
When training is properly accounted for, digital transformation will be more successful in every way. Every digital transformation roadmap should account for training early and thoroughly to ensure success. We often work with companies to help plan training for their digital transformation efforts.
Schedule a free consultation to discuss your project and determine whether we can work together to maximize the success of your organization’s digital transformation efforts.