TOP TRAINING COMPANY BEST PRACTICES

When companies introduce new technology it is to improve productivity, streamline processes, and help employees work more efficiently. With all of these positive outcomes, you would think that most employees would be happy to adopt it. In reality, it is human nature to resist change, and getting employees to alter their daily routines is often a challenge.

Here are three ways to improve user adoption of new technology.

Involve end-users in decision making

Once a need to solve a business problem has been identified, your tech team will search for technologies to address the issue. Before the leadership team makes a final decision, it is helpful to enlist a panel of employees who will be using the technology and involve them in the review and selection.

When you ask people’s opinions and they have been included in the decision, they will be more open to adopting the technology once launched. They can also serve as champions among their colleagues during roll-out, to ensure support and adoption.

Communicate the change

When implementing new technology, begin communicating the change to the impacted employees as early as possible. Use the communication to demonstrate the ways in which the new technology will benefit users – how it will streamline their job, reduce errors, provide access to better information, increase productivity, or improve performance.

If employees can spend less time on an inefficient aspect of their job that will be addressed by the technology, they will have more time for more interesting projects, a benefit that will encourage adoption.

Use gamification in business training

Any new technology implementation will involve some type of training. Think about your end-users and the training format that will be most conducive to learning. One form is gamification.

What is gamification? It involves adding elements of games such as competition, points, badges, levels and leaderboards to training programs to make them more engaging for learners. The goal of gamification is to:

• Motivate learners
• Impact their behavior
• Recognize their participation
• Reward their progress 

If your company wants to "gamify" your technology training programs, download "Improve New Technology Adoption with Gamification". This ebook outlines seven factors to consider to ensure it is a success.

To learn more about technology user adoption, check out 5 Corporate Technology Training Best Practices.