Are your people embracing new working habits?

By Andrew Cheel

Andrew Cheel, UC Ambassador Architect, Siemens Enterprise Communications, looks behind the scenes at how to get users to change their working habits and embrace new productivity tools such as Unified Communications.

In the midst of a challenging economic climate with fierce, fast moving competition, businesses (large and small) are being forced to look seriously at innovative ways to get more from less. This is certainly the case when it comes to employees as they account for the largest expenditure in any business. In fact the most frequently asked questions I am asked by CEO's focus on how to increase productivity from a reduced workforce in a way that will keep operations stable and create a platform to aggressively attack new growth opportunities in the future.

Clearly this is a very difficult area to approach as there are so many contributing factors to consider before a credible solution can be created. However, one thing you can be certain of is that technology will form a major part of the overall solution. Businesses will need to cash in on some of the big promises that have emanated from the emerging technology sector over the last few years, in particular from the area of Unified Communication (UC). This technology provides users with a portal style interface from which they can control their business communications including telephony/network presence, one number flexibility, Instant Messaging and conferencing via audio, video and/or web collaboration. The benefits from technology such as UC are often understood, but a major difference is that organisations will insist on benefit realisation from UC as soon as the equipment goes live. The selected solution must be in and working "yesterday" and delivering the anticipated benefits by the "end of the week".

On a positive note, a high percentage of productivity enhancing technologies such as Unified Communications have been available for a few years now which hopefully gives any potential customer the confidence that the solution will work from day one of its operational life.  However, one of the major risks now faced by organisations is how well the employees embrace the new IT toolset and how long it takes them to get comfortable enough to unlock its true potential - for many this will come as a surprise.

People present the biggest challenge

If you boil it down to the bare basics, people are the single most critical element to the success or failure of any IT led project. Once you have the user community onside you are virtually guaranteed a successful business outcome. If you lose them along the project deployment path you could be reducing the level of productivity benefits you had accounted for. Despite what the IT department may think, the end user is human and can therefore be resistant to change, especially if it challenges their comfort zone.

This remains an ongoing issue for the IT department and their technology partners.  They need to ensure that this critical link is in place and they are ready to actively help users adopt the new toolsets and transition their working practises seamlessly. There are three approaches to this: 'trial and error' where users are given the new tools and told to get on with it; a 'sheep-dip approach' of training all users with a one size fits all training programme; or a 'bespoke and role based' programme which puts the users and the business processes at the heart of the project and builds out from there.

I am generalising here, but it has always amazed me how little thought and, in some cases, effort goes into ensuring the people at the heart of the organisation are completely onside when it comes to deploying new technology, even if improvements to their working environment is the main driver for change. It must be understood that behavioural change doesn't just magically happen once a new technology has been deployed; it has to be encouraged and nurtured in a way that makes sense to each and every user. This is certainly true when it comes to UC solutions, as this will challenge many traditional ways of working.

The secret recipe

Unfortunately there isn't a secret recipe for success to encourage the workforce to embrace new ways of working. From my experience the success of a UC deployment is in direct proportion to the amount of thought and effort that has been invested in qualifying and then quantifying the size of the user challenge. This includes defining each individual step that needs to be taken in order to enthuse and motivate your people to willingly adopt, embrace and actively support the new technology through the transition cycle and beyond. In order to get the best from people we must guide them through a clearly defined and well thought out process that leaves no stone unturned and nothing left to misinterpretation. There is a famous saying "Hope is not strategy" and hope by itself is never a good thing, especially when it affects our day to day working habits.

End user training is a critical component of enabling the workforce, but it is only one part of an overall effective deployment strategy. The world of one size fits all training is disappearing forever as this approach can never encapsulate the needs of all and certainly won't propel your people to the dizzy heights of high productivity that delivers the results your organisation needs to remain successful in the future.

About

Andrew Cheel is the Programme Architect for the UC Ambassador programme at Siemens Enterprise Communications. Having worked with an evolving Unified Communications toolset over the last five years he has a wealth of practical experience on how to motivate users to embrace new technology to change their working habits.