The Importance of User Adoption

Why User Adoption Matters

Without a doubt employees drive technology implementation success. A company can invest in the best solution on the market, install, configure and customise it to reflect all their business processes, but if employees do not use it, it is not worth the money or time invested in it.

While a new application’s technical benefits may be clear to the management team who chose it, they often are not obvious to the employees, who may consider the new software disruptive. It forces them to change their processes in a way they may resent. If employees do not understand the reason behind the change and what the upside is, they are not invested in its success.

If a new technology implementation causes users to fall behind in their work as a result in a change of processes or because they lack training, it has a direct impact on the return on investment model, often resulting in…

·       Reduced user productivity.

·       Increased time needed for training.

·       Inefficient processes

·       Reduced staff morale

·       Increased time trouble shooting

Clearly the answer is to introduce mandatory training for everyone, this might sound like the right answer however this approach will often fail. Training without understanding and buy-in will not solve the challenges the business faces. Only if employees are invested in the success of the new technology will they be interested in learning about it.

Recognising the Impact

When you have a major technology rollout everyone feels the impact, all employees will feel a level of disruption not just the decision makers. Every person who uses the technology will experience a change to their daily work routine and productivity will likely decrease temporarily while everyone learns the new system. Expecting this and planning for it is key, acknowledging this as part of the User Adoption Process is a must.

Investing time at the beginning to review, change and amend processes instead of doing it after the event is key. It can be both more cost effective and less stressful to plan for these changes at the beginning instead of wasting more time and money later down the line.

An inclusive Adoption Approach

Success can often be measured by the performance of the new technology, businesses can at times be mis lead to do just this. The biggest investment made being the new technology its self and as such expect for the technology to deliver the ROI.  If they don’t recognise that the people using the technology will actually determine its success. With any change process a business will experience resistance, the trick is to plan for it in advance, ‘fail to plan then plan to fail’

The technology adoption lifecycle (TALC) was first described by a researcher who was surprised by the resistance of farmers to adopting new, more profitable hybrid corn varieties. It also applies to almost any change process. See the drop off between the enthusiastic adopters and everyone else? That is known as the chasm, and that is where change processes live or die, by having the momentum to move past it (or not).

Engaging employees early doors is important to ensure a reduction in the chasm, complexity can add to the challenges so again ensuring all areas and roles are considered when designing the useability of the new technology is paramount to a successful adoption.

If the technology is too complicated, the learning curve may be too much to handle. Another important factor is effectiveness. Employees want to get their jobs done. For the most part, they are not invested in using one tool versus another.

If they can get their jobs done with the new tool just as easily as with the old one, most will accept the change. However, if the new tool disrupts their ability to complete assigned tasks, people may take it personally, feeling as though their reputations, credibility or regard may be on the line. Often, this pride in productivity is behind what seems like stubborn resistance to change. Managers should listen to employees’ stories, acknowledge their frustrations, answer their questions and act to remove any impediments to adoption

Adoption Creates Value

The potential value of a new technology lies in the new and improved behaviours and practices that might emerge when the technology is introduced to and adopted by employees. Value builds when people willingly change the way they behave and discover why the software offers better ways to do their work, boosting operational performance, increasing the company’s ability to innovate, simplifying collaboration and improving decision-making.