What are the Most Comprehensive Digital Adoption Strategies to Maximize Employee Engagement?

The Great Detachment is in full swing, and if you’re a business owner, you need to know about it. Gen Zers are reportedly jaded and unhappy, with American Staffing Association CEO Richard Wahlquist estimating that 17 percent of employees are “actively disengaged” at work.

According to the latest research, companies with high employee engagement outperform those on the other end of the scale by as much as 202 percent. Digital adoption strategies are essential when introducing employees to new technology. If done right, the upgraded tools could reinvigorate them and fill them with a revitalized passion for work.

Why Employee Engagement is Crucial in Digital Adoption

For businesses that want to integrate new technology and move forward in the rapidly evolving digital landscape, the transition will be much smoother if the workforce is engaged and ready to learn. Imagine trying to teach a complex math problem to a room filled with tired students who aren’t focusing on the lesson. Now think about how the situation would change if you warmed them up first with some fun games and had them all paying 100 percent focus on you. They’re more likely to learn in the second scenario, don’t you think?

According to a report from McKinsey, a whopping 70 percent of digital transformation efforts fail due to employee resistance. This shows that workforces are generally resistant to change and prefer to continue working in the way that they’re used to. It highlights how business owners can’t simply roll out a new digital upgrade to their systems and expect people to immediately get on board with it. Instead, they need to use a careful strategy to do so and ensure that employees are engaged with it.

While employees who are disengaged are unlikely to work with new technology, those who are engaged could assist business owners with a rollout of new policy. Indeed, if people feel passionate about what they are doing, they are more likely to champion it to others and try to get them on board as well. There are various ways to do this, including ensuring that employees feel actively involved by asking them for regular feedback.    

What Are the Key Elements of a Successful Digital Adoption Strategy?

One of the most crucial elements of a good digital adoption strategy is getting employees to realize that they need the new technology that you’re trying to integrate. 73 percent of employees prefer technology that directly impacts their productivity, so it can be useful to conduct surveys to understand that challenges that they face in their day-to-day roles. By then posing digital adoption as a solution to any common problems that arise, employees could find themselves more open to its integration.

After establishing that a new technology is going to help employees do their jobs more effectively, you can then start thinking about rolling out some training days or programs to help them transition easily. Lack of training has been found to be a barrier to digital adoption, and only 12 percent of employees feel that their organization does a good job in training them on new technology integrations. Getting an outside company to come in and conduct the training can be a great tactic as well, as it adds authority and expertise.

With any digital adoption strategy, it should be an upgrade to existing protocols rather than a seismic shift to a completely new wat of doing things. If technology is too complicated, it can reduce productivity rather than enhance it. Instead, it should be seamlessly integrated into existing workflows, where employees can see that it’s an improvement on their existing way of doing things.

After introducing a new technology and training staff on it, the work doesn’t simply end. That’s because 85 percent of employees reported that they would be more likely to stay in their jobs beyond three years if new technologies came with ongoing support. It’s not a case of simply giving people a new tool to use and telling them to get on with it; it’s about holding their hand during the transition process and ensuring that they get assistance when they need it.

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Smooth Integration is Crucial

If the technological upgrades you want to introduce are too complex, they will create barriers in the way of digital transformation. This is why smooth integration is key, and business owners need to carefully consider systems before seeking to bring them in. According to a study from Science Direct, extended reality is an example of a technology that has been struggling to achieve widespread adoption. This is due to organizational-level resistance about its complexities.

If a business owner needs to adopt a new digital upgrade and there are various options available, the best approach would be to opt for the one that prioritizes user friendliness. For example, if you want to change to a different payment processing system, it’s wise to go for an option that has good reviews and is known for bringing minimal disruption to employees’ daily workflow.

Business owners need to think carefully before settling on the right payment processing companies. Analyzing all the key details of a payment processor makes it easier to select one and to understand how easy they are to integrate. The same level of research should go into any new piece of technology that a company wants to adopt, because if it isn’t user friendly, it could be doomed to fail.

Measuring the Success of Digital Adoption

The final stage of giving digital adoption the best chance of success is to measure its success once it has been implemented. The first thing you should do is start measuring user adoption rates to gauge how engaged employees are with the new tools. Along with this, you can measure whether overall productivity has improved to assess whether a new technological integration has worked effectively.

You could also opt to organize some market research style methods into employee satisfaction with the new technology. This could come in the form of feedback surveys and interviews with staff members to see how they are getting on. If they are having difficulties with it and feel like the employers are putting steps in place to deal with them, they may engage more and be willing to persevere.

This would involve business owners having to take the research seriously and then seek to implement improvements to the technology integrations. In some cases, you may end up realizing that further training is needed. In others, it may come to light that the technology simply doesn’t align with the way the company operates.

The ultimate decider on whether digital adoption has been successful is if it provides a significant return on investment. Businesses are 1.5 times more likely to achieve their ROI targets if employees are effectively engaged, according to research from Deloitte.

Business owners need to realize that there are so many things to consider when implementing new technology in a business. Employee engagement is crucial, and if the workforce isn’t interested, a new strategy could be doomed to fail. Using training and employee feedback to ensure that the adoption process is smooth will help its chances of success.