Did you know that 70 percent of companies already have a business digital transformation strategy in place? There are many reasons why such a switch is happening. According to 56 percent of CEOs, a digital transformation has contributed to an increase in revenue. In addition, digital pioneers are 64 percent more likely than other companies to achieve their goals.
A successful digital transformation needs to be integrative. Not only does it have to encompass most processes, but it also should get employees involved.
What does it take to make your employees an active part of the business digital transformation? Various approaches can help you achieve personalization and optimal results in terms of tech modernization.
Consistent Communication
Whether you’re introducing digital document management or a digital mailroom for the very first time, communication is essential.
Open communication beforehand paints a comprehensive picture of employee needs, challenges, and procedural bottlenecks an eventual digitization can address.
Research suggests that companies focusing on open communication with their employees are eight times more likely to be successful in terms of their transformation.
Communication, however, doesn’t end once a new solution is implemented. It needs to be consistent and ongoing. Gathering feedback about the learning curve of employees and the usefulness of a new solution can help with the introduction of additional adjustments that will contribute to better results and higher levels of engagement down the line.
Cultivate an Innovative Mindset
Business culture has to be cultivated for an organization to thrive.
If you don’t want to face extensive opposition toward a business digital transformation, you will have to work on nurturing an innovative mindset within the organization. Such practices should commence long before any new form of digitization is considered or introduced.
It’s your responsibility to make sure that people will embrace change. Innovation can be encouraged in so many ways. Start by setting a personal example. A management team that’s open to change and growth will stimulate similar workplace attitudes. In addition, you can carry out awareness campaigns to reduce the risk of defensiveness, give employees a voice (through polling and surveys), open up space in daily schedules for creativity and innovation, be open to acknowledging failures, and invest in high-quality, relevant technology when the time comes.
Get HR Involved in the Business Digital Transformation
The HR team can help quite a lot with the tailoring of your transformation strategy.
An approach you can work on together is the development of employee personas. This method is especially beneficial for larger organizations that have many different kinds of users.
HR professionals can provide key information on typical user behaviors, everyday challenges, and the ways in which new technology could address those.
Obviously, a bigger organization will benefit from a larger number of personas and a more diversified profile.
While such generalized profiles always come with some shortcomings, they can shed a lot of light on the best ways to communicate and introduce change. Later on, technology consumption tracking for each of the personas will reveal additional information and allow for better fine-tuning.
Focus on Mundane, Cumbersome Tasks First
To make sure everyone’s on board, you have to offer a solution that the vast majority of employees will embrace. One of the best ways to achieve this goal involves the digitization and automation of the most cumbersome and repetitive tasks first.
Contemporary business solutions like cloud-based document storage, document management, invoicing, HR, and CRM solutions all offer some degree of workflow creation and automation.
These capabilities reduce the need for human involvement in menial, repetitive tasks. When tech takes over, employees get more time to dedicate to strategic and creative aspects of doing their job.
This is why you need to be very tactical about the processes to digitize first. If these contribute to a positive experience, chances are that employees will be much more open and engaged when it comes to future changes.
Diversify Employee Skill Profiles
People are going to feel threatened by innovation if it’s an alien concept.
You need to empower your workers and give them the skills required to make the most of your business’s digital transformation.
To accomplish this goal, do invest in education and upskill opportunities.
Digital transformation programs are scary because technology evolves really fast. As a result, many workers will find it difficult or even impossible to keep up with the constantly shifting landscape.
As a business owner or a manager, you can readily invest in the acquisition of new skills. When employees are equipped with the knowledge and understanding to handle change well, they are not going to be resistant to it.
Even if you’re worried about the cost of diversifying skill profiles, such initiatives will pay off in the long run. Not only do they increase employee commitment and engagement within the organization, but they also maximize productivity and contribute to unparalleled gains in performance.