8 Strategies To Help Employees Adapt to New Technology in the Workplace

It’s no secret that digital transformation is here; remote and hybrid workingOpens a new window is now the norm. This has accelerated the growth of collaborative technologies like cloud computing, AI, and augmented reality (AR).

New technology can improve all aspects of your operations, from scaling your business to increasing employee efficiency. But in 2020, only around 50%Opens a new window of businesses were adopting emerging technologies like cloud computing and SaaS marketing platforms, according to Statista. And fewer than 30% were adopting other emerging technologies:

One reason for this could be worker resistance.

There are many reasons workers resist new technology, including:

Feeling excluded from the decision-making process.
Lack of communication from management.
Failing to see the benefits.
Resenting perceived interference from management.
Lack of confidence around technology.
Failing to see a use for it.
Feeling threatened and unappreciated.

Overcoming worker resistance to getting new tech into the workplace can seem impossible, but don’t despair. With the right strategies, you can help workers not only adapt to new technology but also thrive with it. And if your employees thrive, your business will too.

This article will outline eight proven strategies to help employees adapt to new technology in the workplace.:

1. Ask employees for their input

Let’s start by tackling the first reason workers resist new technology: feeling excluded from the decision-making process.

Before you rush out and buy new tech, you need to consult your employees. This doesn’t have to be a formal interview. For instance, you could:

Ask department heads what they think. Will the new tech make employees’ jobs easier? Will it address an existing pain point? If employees are struggling to prioritize tasks, they’re not going to be enthusiastic about a new tool unless it includes virtual task management.
Send a questionnaire to employees about the tech they currently use and what would make their job easier. Is their solution the same as yours? Your idea of the best team task management software may not be the same as that of your employees. Use software such as Qualtrics or SurveyMonkey to create easily accessible surveys that can be sent across the company. By sending a questionnaire straight to employees’ inboxes, you can quickly collect valuable feedback on what software would benefit them most.
Organize a committee to determine how to optimize tech for each department. Your marketing department will have different needs from your HR and finance departments.

Asking employees for their input not only increases the likelihood of them using the new tech but also shows that you appreciate them. And employees who feel appreciated are more productive.

2. Communicate the benefits

This strategy combats two causes of worker resistance:

Lack of communication from management.
Failing to see the benefits of new technology.

Transparency is vital when bringing in tech that affects how employees do their job, even if that tech will help them. Open dialog is the best way to promote transparency and ease the transition from old to new.

Consider hosting a video meeting to communicate the benefits of the new technology and encourage questions and feedback so you can deal with any issues that may arise.

After the meeting, provide a place where employees can continue to ask questions and where you can provide updates. Create a group on the instant messaging software you use in-house and send regular email updates to keep employees in the loop.

But many businesses are failing to promote transparency through open dialog. There’s a big difference between companies that outperform their rivals and those that don’t.

Employees are more likely to accept new tech if you answer the question, “What’s in it for me?” So, if you think cloud computing will make remote sales management easier, tell people! Explain how the new tech will benefit them, and do your best to address their concerns.

This is particularly important with less tech-savvy employees since they’re the ones who’ll feel the most unsettled.

3. Recruit tech-savvy volunteers

Let’s imagine you’re looking to adopt software to help build your affiliate marketing sales funnel. Recruiting a few volunteers from your marketing team to try out the software could answer questions like:

How easy is it to use the software?
How will the software benefit the marketing team?
What’s the best way to sell it to the rest of the team?
Will it create new challenges or address existing ones?

Use these insights to shape how you go about the rest of your rollout.

You can also use these tech-savvy volunteers to promote the new technology to their colleagues. Maybe they could be the ones to host the video meeting to introduce the technology to the team. This will minimize any resentment employees feel about your perceived interference in how they work. These volunteers can also help with the next strategy: providing adequate training.

4. Provide adequate training

Marketers should nurture leads; employers should nurture employees. Yet there’s a big difference between what employers see as adequate training and what employees think. According toOpens a new window an IBM and Josh Bersin study, 74% of employers think they’re helping employees learn new skills, while just 38% of employees agree.

But companies that outperform their rivals make skills growth a key part of performance management. So, providing adequate training not only helps your employees but also helps you.

Training boosts employees’ confidence around unfamiliar tech and makes them more likely to accept it. You should schedule training sessions both during and after the introduction of the new tech to help everyone get familiar with it. But remember — when it comes to learning, there’s no such thing as one-size-fits-all.

Here are some more training tips to think about:

Make training fun. Employees will retain more information if the training is enjoyable. They’re also more likely to attend!
Split training up. Don’t give employees all the training in one go. Splitting training into shorter chunks will help keep them engaged. Consider using microlearning software as employees can learn and test their knowledge in small bite-size chunks.
Create an SOP. Create a standard operating procedure document that employees can refer to if they forget any of the training.

If in doubt, think about what helps you learn. And then do that.

See More: Your Deskless Workers Are on the Frontline: Here’s How to Retrain Them

5. Use guided learning

Don’t sit employees down and talk at them for two hours. Hold workshops that combine training with doing. For example, instructors could give employees bite-sized chunks of information. Then employees could try it out for themselves. This kind of guided learning helps employees remember what to do because they’ve actually done it.

Tailor workshops by department, so employees only learn what they need for their job, not everyone else’s. Your finance department doesn’t need to know how the cloud can help their digital marketing strategy.

You should also bear in mind that some employees are less tech-savvy than others. If your company is adopting a cloud communications platform, some employees will know all about it, while others will be wondering, “what is cloud communications”?

This is a good time to bring in your tech-savvy volunteers. Pair them with colleagues who are less confident with technology so they can help their colleagues get up to speed.

6. Let employees learn on their own

Some employees need hand-holding at every stage during training. Others learn best on their own. In fact, more and more workers in all age groups want fully independent learning.

So it’s important to facilitate self-guided learning. You can do this by:

Creating a ‘playpen’ that’s separate from the main system. This lets employees try out the new tech without worrying about messing up the whole system. A digital adoption platform (DAP) could be useful as it enables you to create educational content within the actual software to help train employees quickly.
Providing online resources for employees to work through if they need a refresher. Try to provide a mixture of resources, like step-by-step guides, infographics, audio recordings, and videos. All of these could be managed through a learning management system (LMS) which will help keep track of all training and enable you to identify any areas where you can improve.
Creating a quiz that employees can do in their own time to see if there are areas they need to brush upon.

7. Give employees a reason to use it

Sometimes employees may still need convincing of the need to use new technology. Ongoing training can help with this, but so can applying the principles of A/B testing ideas (comparing one version of an asset with another) to your rollout. You might try:

Holding a workshop where everyone tries out the new tech and compares it to the old. A virtual classroom is a useful option. It provides an engaging environment for learners to develop their skills and enables you to gather vital data on how successful the training is.
Having a friendly competition where one team uses the old tech and one team uses the new tech to see which is better. Use training software with integrated gamification with leaderboards and reward badges for encouraging employees to participate.

Providing incentives for people to use the new tech can also help. A small bonus or even an office trophy could be all it takes to encourage people to try it out. And keeping up a dialog will help you quickly address any concerns or issues.

8. Celebrate success

Just as your company should have a customer-centric culture, it should also have an employee-centric culture. This means celebrating success, no matter how small. If an employee does something in record time because of the new tech, make sure everyone knows about it! Your marketing department can promote your business to employees as well as customers.

It’s also important to reward employees for their contributions. Employees who make the best use of the new tech should be paid accordingly, especially if they boost the business’s revenue. But at the moment, only 31% of employers base their pay on employee contribution, according to IBM’s study mentioned above.

If employees know you reward success, they’ll be more motivated to adopt the new tech. They’ll also be more likely to adopt new tech in the future.

Employees resist new technology for all sorts of reasons. Understanding those reasons is the first step to helping them adapt to new technology. The next step is using the tried-and-tested strategies outlined in this article.

How are you overcoming employee resistance to adopting tech at the workplace? Let us know on FacebookOpens a new window , TwitterOpens a new window , and LinkedInOpens a new window .

8 Strategies To Help Employees Adapt to New Technology in the Workplace - Spiceworks (2024)