Most companies are aware that they should consider digital transformation in some form or another if they have not already. And the statistics bear this out – technology media giant IDG’s research revealed that 89% of companies plan on integrating more digital solutions in their business strategies. However, IDG found that 44% failed to do so fully, while McKinsey projected a 70% failure rate.
What is the issue? In the McKinsey study, the first issue mentioned was the lack of employee engagement. This is confirmed by research done for The Association for Intelligent Information Management that discovered 75% of companies did not get the right information to the right process worker, causing dissatisfaction as well as confusion. A very frustrating situation, considering that MIT’s Centre for Information Systems Research showed that an improved employee experience also improves innovation, customer satisfaction, and profitability.
So, how can you engage your employees in your digital transformation?
5 employee engagement considerations for digital transformation
Employees are not only the major users internally of any digitizing that a company implements, but they can also be the greatest advocates with customers for any digital transformation that impacts user experiences. So, it is fundamental for employees to be fully engaged in any digital transformation project.
1. Champion the change from top management down
C-suite and executive-level indifference or lack of engagement on their side will be felt all throughout the organization. McKinsey took a deeper look at digital transformation from the executive standpoint and revealed sobering information, that less than 30% felt transformations were successful or even improved performance. And while they agreed that senior leaders spending half their time on the transformation will double the chances of success, only around 40% say they invested that much time on digitization initiatives. If leaders don’t lead, employees are unlikely to follow.
2. Channel the employee’s experience as well as the customer’s
As you plan your business process automation or digitizing, you should focus on how each process impacts both employee and customer. Directly as well as indirectly. Research focused on the digital divide between companies and consumers in Forbes points to 75% of employees being unhappy if given technology they believe is ineffective. This had a knock-on effect where 75% of those people admitted this kept them from collaborating with colleagues to solve customer issues. Unhappy employees most likely will equal unhappy customers
3. Focus on required yet mundane manual tasks
An excellent way to achieve those happy employees is to clear their plates of repetitive, manual tasks that do more to inflict carpal tunnel syndrome than to streamline or optimize performance. With such processes automated, your teams become more productive and can focus more on improving sales and customer experiences. By removing these administrative or repetitive tasks from operational flow, you also provide employees with the chance to learn new skills and take on more challenging projects for your company.
4. Encourage internal coaching and mentoring
Training is a key part of successful digital transformation, and you may require a third-party at some point coming in to train your trainers or train you employees directly. But learning the necessary skills for a successful transformation also offers an opportunity to ensure that it is a success. That is, get your managers and employees involved in helping each other out. By fostering an atmosphere of collaborative assistance and by encouraging teams to support each other through the transformation, you allow a sense of ownership to form. Creating a vested interest means employees will be more invested in the digital transformation success.
5. Avoid cutting corners
Make the technology and digitization solution work for you, not the other way around. This is no time to settle for “plug and play” solutions that require you to alter your business process to suit a rigid ERP platform. It may work on paper, but your employees will not appreciate having to learn a new process that not only doesn’t do what the old system did, but that also complicates their jobs. Automating and digitizing should not include additional, or more intricate, steps. One size does not fit all – it just makes it harder to do your work.
Beehave designs for digitizing solutions engages employees as well as users
Beehave is definitely NOT a “one size fits all” provider. Far from that. We are committed to agility, flexibility, and adaptability at every level, for every customer. Understanding that employees are central to almost every digital transformation, our team will work with you to help analyze and evaluate what they need to ensure your transformation is successful. We can customize Beehave to suit your business requirements, from one process to a complete system, or we can train your team to modify and tailor Beehave in-house. Whatever way you choose to transform, Beehave will be by your side, helping you streamline and automate business processes. Contact us today to find out how.