Evolving change management to software value realization

Most digital transformations fail. As a global entrepreneur and former software implementation consultant for Fortune 500 companies, I know that a digital initiative doesn’t end after a platform goes live. Digital change has a huge impact on our employees, who interact with about 13 applications 30 times per day to be successful in their jobs.

When trying to get employees to embrace new technology and tools, leaders say their biggest challenge is hard-to-use applications with a high learning curve (68 percent). It is, therefore, not surprising that many employees’ responses to digital transformation follow a process similar to the Kubler-Ross Stages of Grief. In the context of software adoption, we can think of this in terms of the associated Kubler-Ross Change Curve.

Employee resistance to digital change, as many learning and development and change management professionals run into with every software launch, is derived from this model. Faced with unfamiliar software, employees defensively react with shock and denial, leading to frustration and depression, which inevitably coincides with a decline in productivity.

Eventually, however, employees are forced to integrate this change (digital tools) into their work lives, and new efficiencies drive revenue, creating more positive feelings amongst employees -- or they don’t. Within two days of training, 75 percent of the information taught is lost, according to Ebbinghaus's Forgetting Curve, leaving the user unable to help themselves through difficult processes, which leads to resistance once again. This is why meaningful software and process adoption cannot be achieved through change management consisting of one-time, isolated instances of communication and/or training. The one-time nature of these methods means they do not accommodate the “forgetting curve,” or the reality that most people forget newly learned information in a week. 

Organizations that adhere to this outdated change management approach will likely have a dystopian experience with their enterprise software -- a sense of frustration, inefficiency, and loss from seeing their employees getting stuck in the depression and poor productivity trap -- and never getting out. By the time an organization recognizes the issue, it may be too late to change course because people have already found workarounds and rejected the software. It’s estimated that a staggering 55 percent of the hundreds of SaaS applications bombarding employees regularly go unused. It’s no wonder then that, according to Gartner, 56 percent of organizations experience a high degree of regret over their largest tech-related purchases. In fact, it’s estimated that the average organization loses almost $300K per year in annual license fees.

So how do organizations evolve from outdated change management processes to value realization? Driving meaningful software uptake requires a more modern approach consisting of the following:

• A superior user experience -- Traditional training methods like emails, videos, and quick reference guides fail for several reasons. First, they are quickly outdated over time, especially given the increased reliance on cloud apps featuring frequent releases throughout the year. Users go through a significant amount of change to stay up to date on new features, which results in a huge hit to productivity for both business users and IT as users request help to get up to speed.

Second, and perhaps more importantly, the newest generation of workers doesn’t want this type of training content. They want to be intuitively guided through software just as they are in their favorite and best consumer app experiences, which they expect to be increasingly slick, fast, and reliable. When the user experience falls short, it is then that organizations are often met with significant resistance to the new software or process. On the other hand, guiding users through software step-by-step in the moment of need delivers accelerated and seamless onboarding for new users while offering self-help and guidance to existing users through digital upgrades and evolving business processes.

• Easy identification and remediation of problem areas -- Traditionally, change management teams have required executive buy-in on remedial measures, but this approach is no longer sufficient. Rather, change management teams need to be able to identify where problems are and quickly fix them through targeted content delivery (for example, reminders, alerts, banners, and information bubbles), addressing specific pain points in software for various user segments.

It’s all about reducing human error and ensuring users receive contextual assistance and on-demand training when and where they need it as they use an application. By providing helpful content when and where users are most frustrated and need support, organizations lessen the sharp productivity decline because this approach aligns with today’s user expectations for an intuitive, self-guided experience.

• Proof of Software Adoption -- Not only is a new approach needed to help users learn tasks and new functions, but there also needs to be a data-driven approach to software adoption -- measurable proof points that document employees’ effective use of new tech. An organization can’t improve what it can’t measure. These organizations spend millions on new software, and in today’s revenue-obsessed business cultures, there can no longer be just "guessing" at what the ROI might be and assuming the organization is realizing value. 

Across various departments, there needs to be activity tracking and analytics to deliver insights and whether and which users are embracing the software. At a higher level, there needs to be qualitative and quantitative data on whether or not digital adoption goals and business process policies are being met. By addressing the root cause -- lack of user adoption -- of digital change initiative failures, the ROI and bottom line are affected. Organizations will see fewer support tickets, faster time to value, increased productivity, more efficient communications, better digital user experiences, less frustration and resistance, more accurate data, and an increase in reliable data-informed decisions for executives.

As we face an economic downturn, reduced budgets, and continual digital transformation, CFOs and CTOs are held to higher standards. They require tangible and favorable results from enterprise investments faster to help positively drive the bottom line. Without linked software value, they’re left potentially holding tens of millions of dollars in cost with no ROI to show for it.

People inherently resist change, and by moving beyond traditional approaches to change management, organizations can reduce the jarring nature of change, and that’s what makes the productivity drop less drastic and shortens users’ time "stuck in the mud." Organizations must no longer consider change management complete once an application goes live and once the trainers leave. It is then that users are on their own, and there are many lurking pitfalls on the path to meaningful adoption. Given the volume of applications employees are expected to work with and their pace of change, a new approach to change management is needed, one that emphasizes the user experience, inherently surfaces issues, and delivers data-driven value realization.

Photo credit: Creativa Images / Shutterstock

Krishna Dunthoori is Founder and CEO, Apty.