‘Your office software is not the problem. You are.’ That was the provocative title of a Guardian article. Our lead digital consultant Tony Stewart gives us his thoughts.
In the article, a customer success manager wrote about what they claim most software vendors are thinking but don’t want to say publicly. To summarise: if you don’t like the software, don’t blame us, blame yourself.
It’s easy to point fingers instead of taking responsibility for our own failings, especially when the recipient is a faceless app. The article goes on to blame not just the employees, but the lower-level drones who don’t want the challenge of rolling out a complex platform.
It’s understandable. It’s a mammoth task and often, it’s not in anyone’s job description and it’s not something done side of desk.
The solution?
According to the article, it’s time and money. I disagree. Sure, you need time and money, but they don’t succeed on their own. It’s vision and action that drive necessary change. Vision makes sure everyone in the business is clear on why and how you’re using the software. And action means someone will own that vision, roll up their sleeves and bring it to life.
If you’re not clear about what your business can achieve by using the platform, why would your employees take the time and effort to learn how to use it? You have to make the effort to sell it to your employees, stakeholders and senior leaders. It can’t be something done to them. It has to be done with them.
You have to approach it as the complicated behavioural change programme that it is. You’re asking them to wrestle with a new piece of tech or create a new habit when they’re used to doing things a certain way. It’s imperative you help your people understand the value the platform has to them and the business.
It’s hard. It’s nuanced. And it’s tricky.
We have to consider accessibility, too. These powerful tools have a real opportunity to impact how your people do their business, but digital capability is a wide spectrum. Not all your people are going to ‘get it’ and you need to keep that in mind. And of those who do get on board, many of them won’t scratch the surface of available capabilities (how many times have you heard, “Oh, I didn’t know that Instagram could do that!”).
If you want your digital employee platforms rollout to be successful, then you need to have a vision, take action and be fully aware that some people in your organisation will resist (with or without good reason). I can appreciate why some of these lower-level drones don’t want to take on that task.
It requires very specific digital and change management skills.
But no software is perfect, and not everyone will have the baseline digital capability to get the most out of it right away. So you need to facilitate the change and make that gap smaller as much as you can.
My ‘8 pillars of digital success’ programme helps you do just that with any kind of digital EX platform.
Closing the digital skills gap
Want to talk about how to bring your vision and action to life in your organisation and make the most of your employee experience platforms? Get in touch.
