Seven issues an IT manager needs to address before an employee gets new software You may not think about it, but when you change software there is a direct and immediate impact on an employee’s work. The negative impact that new software has on employees can be crippling to your organization, if left unaddressed. Fortunately, these problems can be managed if you create a plan before employees receive new software. The risk of not addressing these seven challenges is the loss of productivity through downtime Gartner* recently studied this issue and looked at the amount of time it takes a user to fully adapt to a major software change. Simply put, an effective training program can save up to 149 hours of an employee’s time. This represents up to $2,800 per user!** (Note: These time-based estimates are over the entire life of new software.) *Gartner document number G00138330/ March 14/2006. **US census as viewed at: http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/releases/archives/income_wealth/005647.html—converted into an hourly wage of $19/hour. For any rollout to be successful you must: Inform employees about the reasons for the change. Employees should be involved in the process and – more importantly – informed about the reason the changes are being made. Remember that changing software will cost them time, and you want them to understand in order to buy into the project. Reduce the downtime cause by trial and error. A recent study at a major research university found that the majority of university students preferred to learn new software through trial and error. This style becomes a problem when an employee receives new software because they will try to figure out tasks themselves. If this process isn’t facilitated, the employee will spend an unnecessary amount of time to learn a task. How will you address the challenge presented by a trial and error learner in order to reduce the inevitable downtime caused by this learning style? Ensure employees know where to get self-help. Users will take the path of least resistance when looking for help. This means they will disturb a neighbor, ask the 'office expert”, or make an unnecessary Help Desk call. Effectively 'communicating the location and availability of self-help material will dramatically reduce the burden on ‘office experts’ and the Help Desk. How are you planning to alleviate the burden on the Help Desk or ‘office experts’? Create a positive perception. Countless research studies have looked at how software is adopted by the end user. Most research points to two critical determinants of software adoption: Perceived ease of use Perceived usefulness These two elements are driven by effective communication. IT implementers must ensure that the end user understands the benefits of the new software (perceived usefulness) and the support they will receive when adopting the new software (perceived ease of use). How are you communicating the benefits and support procedures during a software rollout? Ensure users engage with new features and processes. Ultimately, the user has two options: Unlearn their old software in order to learn and engage with the features of new software. Use the new software as if it was the old software, thus ignoring new features – ultimately destroying the ROI of that software. How will you inspire your users to engage with new software features? Ensure employees have the tools to succeed. A recent study published in the Harvard Business Review found that when employees felt they were provided with the tools, infrastructure, and processes to effectively complete their work, job satisfaction and performance dramatically increased. If an employee does not know how to operate in a new software platform they will inevitably become frustrated with not being able to effectively complete their work. How will you manage the process of software adoption, so that your users will not be prevented from effectively completing their work? Address computer phobia - yes, it still exists! A recent study at a major research university showed that there is a direct and negative relationship between students who self-reported computer phobia and their actual use of the technology. What might be startling is that the same survey (completed by 350 university students) found that: 19% of students reported “moderate/high” levels of computer phobia. 14% of students reported “low” levels of computer phobia. That means 33% of university students reported some level of computer phobia! How are you working to address your employees’ resistance to software?