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With so many of us working remotely, it’s more important than ever that the tech connecting us is seamless, super-efficient and understood. But poor engagement, isn’t always the fault of the tech tools. How can organisations engage employees with the positive possibilities and business efficiencies that digital transformation brings?

Despite huge and rapid corporate investment in digital transformation projects recently, many people are saying that they still have better online tools in their home than they do within their workplace.

Here’s a client challenge we had recently. With just one short email from the CEO, Company X launched a new digital tool to its thousands of employees. The message said: “Hey guys. We’ve just launched Yammer. It’s a lot like Facebook, so you’ll work it out. Have fun!”

You have to admire the positive attitude but it left many employees floundering, with no support. When we started working with this organisation a few months ago, some of its people told us in focus groups that they still had no idea what Yammer was for. A few had taken the time to have a quick peek, but within a few moments had decided that it wasn’t for them. That one and only opportunity to make a good first impression had been and gone.

Sadly, this is a common issue. There’s often an assumption from organisations that employees – particularly younger ones – will ‘just know’ how to use new online tools. But that assumption doesn’t hold up: just because you use Instagram at home, it doesn’t automatically follow that you’ll know how to use Microsoft Teams at work.

Or, as one IT manager put it to us: “They say young people are supposed to be good with IT. Clearly just not the ones that we employ.”

There’s an opportunity here, though, to make a real and significant impact. Digital transformation risk is a top concern of senior leaders, according to research conducted by North Carolina State University’s Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) Initiative and management consultants Protiviti Inc.

Mark Beasley, a Director of the ERM Initiative, told the Wall Street Journal: “Large companies that have long histories and extensive operations could find it particularly difficult to adapt quickly to competition posed by younger companies that digitise products and services, or use technology to operate more efficiently.”

Accordingly, companies are planning on spending more than ￡2.5 trillion on digital transformation projects in the next few years.

But there’s a major problem. According to Harvard Business Review, 70p in every pound spent on digital transformation is wasted.

Plan to succeed

There are many moving parts to these kinds of projects, but in our experience the core issue is poor planning, particularly around the communication – and understanding the audience(s) in particular. The launch email cited earlier being Exhibit A.

In an Industry Week report, 71% of people said that the workforce was either very or extremely important in supporting their digital transformation strategy. For us, that’s way too low. That’s because digital transformation is not really about technology. A digital strategy just cannot work without the support of the people who will be using the tools.

For instance, you must be sure that the tools you’re offering are actually providing the functionality that people want and need. And the only way to do that is to ask them. You might well find that they’ve already found workarounds to fill the gaps in your current channel mix. These tools are known as ‘shadow-ware’.

One common example: in the last couple of years, we’ve found that employees in nearly every one of our client organisations are using WhatsApp for work to some level. That’s not good, to say the least: there are many concerns around the use of WhatsApp in a corporate context, from third-party access, to data storage; from group management to data privacy.

Sometimes the users even include members of the IC, IT or HR teams, who should certainly know better. A typical conversation goes like this:

Sequel: “Do you and your team use WhatsApp for work messages?”

HR Manager: “WhatsApp isn’t allowed here.”

Sequel: “But do you use WhatsApp for work messages?”

HR Manager: “Of course.”

In research carried out by ESN platform company Speakap, 16% of people said their HR or IC departments did not know that shadow-ware was being used frequently. Patrick Van Der Mijl of Speakap said: “The unapproved use of these tools could potentially cause a company to fail an audit without ever causing a data breach, especially in highly regulated industries.”

Carrying out research at the start of your project will help you to understand what’s out there already, so you can replace that functionality with an official tool (for instance Microsoft Teams is an obvious replacement for WhatsApp). Or, if more appropriate, it will help you find a new solution that meets the requirements of your business.

And when you understand your colleagues’ priorities, you can build on that knowledge to develop your wider communication plan to raise awareness, build engagement, and inspire action.

Just don’t use WhatsApp to launch the roll-out.

Footnote:

We’ve picked out the most relevant insights from our annual Sequel Trends insight reports, updating each topic to share what’s relevant, what’s needed and what’s useful to help businesses and comms professionals navigate the new workplace.

Please share your own thoughts, experiences, questions or comments below.

If you want a copy of Sequel’s 2020 Trends report or to pre-order Trends 2021, please direct-message me on LinkedIn. You can find out more about Sequel’s work on https://sequelgroup.co.uk/