You have a vision for digitising your organisation. Leadership thinks it’s a great idea. But now you need your employees to support it too. Although getting buy-in doesn’t mean 100% of people are enthusiastic about the change, it does mean your teams need to understand what you are doing, and why you’re doing it, and support this even if they aren’t fully in agreement with it. Here’s how to make it happen.
#1 – Show them your vision
You need to demonstrate a clear vision for the implementation of new technologies. This means defining the problems your organisation is facing and backing up the performance of the tech with case studies, metrics, and examples that show how it solves this issue. It also means being open and honest about the risks and challenges of the process, and how these are being managed. Remember to focus on how it impacts different teams, how they will be supported, and how it will solve the challenges they face.
#2 – Encourage feedback
Once your team understands your vision, give them channels (focus group discussions, surveys, etc) to submit their feedback and concerns. They are a valuable source of identifying current and potential challenges and being able to get clarification on issues not only helps solidify your strategy but also builds shared knowledge and understanding. Participating in the process also helps to build ownership and confidence in the project, so it’s important to show a sincere willingness to acknowledge others’ opinions, give people time and space to understand your vision and get the information needed to refine the strategy.
#3 – Leverage your feedback
Feedback isn’t just about allaying people’s concerns or building knowledge, it’s about getting actionable insights to refine the tech selection and implementation process. It’s key to digital lean processes that support continuous improvement at every level of the organisation, and it shows the strategy is not just about one person’s vision. After all, each person has specialist insight into their role that others don’t, and this helps shape a more holistic and impactful tech adoption strategy.
#4 – Showcase milestones
At every stage of the project, keep your teams and staff updated on progress. This includes broadcasting milestones, showing where people’s contributions have been included, testing results, results of soft launches or interesting trials that are being run for different organisational processes. This keeps people involved in the project and builds a greater understanding of how the technology works, and how it will change their day-to-day operations and tasks. You can even incorporate fun items here like personal feedback from a staff member who got to try out a new system and what they thought of it, how a person’s contribution has been incorporated into the project or events where the new tech was used for the first time outside of testing.
#5 – Put your IT partners to good use
The solution is to bring in Otto IT to guide, implement, and support your journey. We don’t just select the tech you need; we also help you evaluate what your organisation would benefit from, help you build a business case, and even train and onboard your teams.
With a proven track record in the manufacturing industry as well as small business, real estate, legal, education, and local government sectors, we take digitisation dreams and make them a reality. Our only KPI is your satisfaction!
Jordan is the Chief Commercial Officer at Otto. Jordan is here to help clients remove roadblocks and achieve the business goals they’ve set out. Jordan’s biggest focus is Customer Experience, Business Relationship Management, Risk Management and Strategy.
