Some tips on rolling out new software, by Alison Steele

Nowadays, the corporate world demands that employees be comfortable with technology. Globalization requires extensive communication, networking and sharing by means of computers. However, universities have not adapted their curriculum to these changes in the business world. Undergraduate business students at the University of Toronto, for example, are required to take only one basic computer science class in order to graduate. It is not surprising, then, that 39% of students surveyed on the University of Toronto Facebook Network report not knowing how to set up a mail filter in Outlook, a function that is frequently performed in business environments. Moreover only 2% of students surveyed reported that they had taken a course relating to technology training.

While theory is essential to a student’s education, application of these theories to the workplace is also critical. An accounting student may have extensive knowledge of accounting concepts but it won’t help much if he or she can’t apply this knowledge to accounting software.

A misconception preventing the proper technological training of students is the assumption that all students are computer savvy. Although it is true that students spend a large percentage of their time in front of a computer, the time is spent chatting, downloading music, watching videos on YouTube, gaming, socializing ( using social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace), emailing and occasionally researching for an essay they have due the next morning. While some of these functions may be useful to a corporate office, they are not as valued as understanding the basic underlying functions in the technology used by businesses. The question then becomes: How many business-related functions inherent in technology do students know how to use?

Using questions on basic applications such as Excel, Outlook and PowerPoint, a recent poll conducted on the University of Toronto’s Facebook network shows that 64% don’t know how to use pivot tables in Excel, 52% don’t know how to publish a PowerPoint presentation to the web and 48% don’t know how to set up a meeting invitation in Outlook. These numbers should be alarming to companies who are planning on hiring university graduates as entry-level workers.

The responsibility of training new hires falls to employers. Companies are expected to guide new employees and help them to apply theory to the business environment, a process that may lengthen their learning curve. Are companies aware of this fact and are they ready for it? Furthermore, do they have the appropriate tools to help shorten the learning curve for their new hires?
 

Employers often try to give their employees the tools to succeed at their job, which can ultimately make the company more productive. Far too often, however, companies provide these tools and think their job is done. What does this mean? It’s now up to the individual employee to use the tools effectively. Leaving this up to the employees is really a gamble, which can lead to the underutilization of tools. The idea that tools can just be provided and everyone will use them is wrong.

The reality is that someone must really understands why they are being asked to do something and what’s in it for them to do it. Otherwise, they are more likely to take the path of least resistance when faced with the prospect of changing their behaviour. Take this example: an employee who is given new software and is faced with a challenge of how to use the software. This employee will just call a help desk, ask a neighbour, or just stop trying to use the tool.

But can’t we just assume that by providing the tools to succeed we have done our job? Why don’t they just do it? By looking at the following example, it’s clear we can’t think this way if we want these tools to succeed.

I live a few blocks north of a major university campus. With over 45,000 students who live, work, and study in the area, a large amount of garbage is generated. Recently, there has been a big push to do a better job of separating garbage into paper, styrofoam, plastic and waste. Obviously, this effort is a response to student concerns regarding environmental issues.

So to help sort the garbage into the above categories, large garbage cans were installed with slots for each type of garbage. This sorted garbage would be properly disposed of. These garbage cans were installed in libraries, cafeterias, gyms and on street corners. Problem solved, right? Well no. What actually happened was the groundwork was set up to allow students to effectively sort their garbage into the 4 categories, but that’s where it stopped. It’s true that waste management has substantially improved, but the results have been far from what was expected. So why was this?

The process of sorting the garbage has been left to the students. However, if you walk past these garbage cans and you’ll realize that the process of sorting has become chaotic. Garbage is found in each container, paper is in the Styrofoam slot, garbage is in the paper, etc. At the end of the day, it is up to the individual student to make a choice. That choice is to take a second and think through what they are doing, and place their garbage in the right place.

Cynical students might believe that the garbage would all end up in the same place any way. Others may not understand why they were doing this. Still others probably don’t even take the time to realize that the garbage receptacles were a new concept, and not just a newer, bigger garbage can. The reality is that rather than think about what slot to deposit their garbage in, many students are choosing any slot. In order to solve this problem the university needs to understand why these students are doing this and respond by communicating and informing students. This extra step will help ensure students take the time to sort their garbage. This initiative to sort garbage is such a simple idea, but success is still a long way away.

So if you are providing employees with powerful collaborative software or productivity tools, take a moment to consider the end-user perspective. Work to understand why a user will use the software, the problems they will face and what benefit it will bring them. Then you’ll be better able to create an effective training and communication program to ensure the tools are used to their fullest potential.

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David Mcilroy and Carol Sadler of Liverpool University wanted to know who was using a newly expanded computer facility at the University. Usage of the new facilities was very good, but did that mean the program was a great success? To label it a huge success would involve generalizing from initial observations, something many experts caution against doing. Thus, Mcilroy and Sadler decided to take a closer look and analyze the people who were using the computer facilities. They quickly realized that there were a disproportionate number of people who were not using the computer facilities.

They found that “students who reported either high computer phobia or low computer self-efficacy were less likely to maximise their use of university computer facilities.” There was a direct relationship between students who self-reported computer phobia, and their actual use of the technology. This makes sense: people who don’t like computers or feel that they aren’t helpful simply avoid using them.

What might be startling is that the result of the survey (completed by 350 university students) found that 19% of students reported “moderate/high” levels of computer phobia. When the number of students who indicated a low level of computer phobia are included, the number of university students reporting some level of computer phobia rises to 33%!

Most of us think of young people as the “Nintendo generation” meaning that they can adapt to anything related to technology.. It’s true that young people are much more comfortable with computers.. After all, 66% of students self reported no computer phobia whatsoever. However, 33% is certainly a startling number, and the concern amongst researchers is that this lingering negative perception is being forgotten about.

Another study conducted by Ulla Bunz in the department of Communication at Florida State University analyzed the actual ability of two groups of students: one group having reported higher levels of computer phobia/anxiety and the other group reporting virtually none. She found that there was very little difference between the actual ability of computer users and their level of anxiety. The real difference between these two groups was that the students who reported higher levels of computer anxiety avoided the use of technology. Despite being able to use software just as well, people allowed their perception to dictate their use of new technology. So the biggest problem with adoption of technology isn’t software, it’s perception.

In both these studies it was stressed that implementers of new technology must teach users the following two things:

1. The perceived benefit of new technology – will it actually help the user.
2. The perceived ease of use of that technology – will it take a lot of work to learn and adopt to.

The authors of these studies argued that once you have helped your users with these two critical issues, you are on your way to ensuring maximum adoption and use of that software.

Citations for the above studies:

Bunz et al. Perceived versus actual computer-email-web fluency. Journal of Computers in Human Behavior 23/5 (2007) pg. 2321 – 2344

Mcilroy, David. Sadler, Carol. Boojawon, Nadine. Computer phobia and computer self-efficacy: their association with undergraduates’ use of university computer facilities. Journal of Computers in Human Behavior 23 (2007) pg. 1285-1299

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We all know that email has become a critical part of our day to day lives. It’s the way we keep in touch, stay informed, and conduct business. It’s reasonable to say that email is a backbone for business communication. But is email really helping us conduct business more effectively?

The answer is probably yes, but with some conditions.

Thomas Boston, an economics professor at Georgia Tech, calls email “the Trojan horse of office productivity”. People can easily spend over 3 hours a day reading and responding to email. Overload is quickly becoming one of the biggest challenges facing the modern organization.

The HR consultation firm Deloitte, estimates that 35 million emails are sent a day. This results in the average white collar worker spending 2 hours a day working with email. Nationwide, that’s a staggering 28 billion hours a year, at a cost of $588 billion.

Whether $588 billion is money well spent is a difficult question to answer. Realistically, most of us understand the benefits of email: companies can keep their employees informed with up-to-the-minute information, employees are able to work remotely, global organizations can communicate more efficiently, etc.

However, this investment of time and money might be misguided. Rich D’Amato, CEO of Tatum Partners argues that email can quickly become a crutch for a lack of one-on-one communication. Also, with a steady stream of emails arriving every few minutes, employees are complaining of not getting enough time to focus on larger projects. Despite the warnings of efficiency experts who argue that checking email every few minutes can be devastating to worker productivity. We can’t seem to resist checking out inbox for the following two reasons. First, John Challenger, head of an economic research firm in Chicago says email is “like panning for gold … you never know when the next one’s going to be big”. The moment we are alerted to a new email, we are overcome with a desire to know what the email is about. Secondly, we feel that we don’t want to lose productivity by letting emails pile up, so we think the best solution is to deal with them as soon as they come in. Psychiatrist Richard Winer suggests that in many ways workers have become like Pavlov’s dogs instead of salivating at the prospect of food, we become uncontrollable upon receiving an email alert. We simply cannot resist the urge shift our attention to the inbox.

A recent research study sheds light on why checking email every few minutes is problematic. When we turn our attention to an email, it can take up to 15 minutes to re-focus on what we were originally doing. 15 minutes per office worker quickly adds up, resulting in massive amounts of lost worker productivity.

At some point in the very near future we are going to have to come up with solutions to deal with this mounting problem.

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The debate over the ethics of government surveillance has been raging for years, but currently flying under the radar is an organization that is quickly amassing one of the largest information databases in the world. Who am I talking about? The CIA, MI5? Actually, the answer is Google!

With the recent announcement of Google’s splash into the cell phone market, Google is planning to extend the reach of its paid marketing services to unparalleled new heights. What’s so ‘big brother’ about this?

Google doesn’t just offer it’s clients marketing services. Google offers it’s client’s targeted marketing services. How does it do that? Google works to understand individuals who use Google’s search and email engines. But to understand it’s users, Google essentially profiles every single user who interacts with their system. Ever wonder why they want you to set up a custom Google home page. It’s not because they really want to make sure you know the weather in your local city. They offer this service so they can keep you logged into their servers, thus allowing them to track and document every single search you have ever made. If you’ve been using Google’s iGoogle service to give you news and weather for a while now, try this: do a search, and then log out and do that search again. The search results Google gives you will be different.

The ability to track and document the activity has long been the desire of marketers. The internet is taking this ability to new heights. Google Analytics is able to track the internet browser, operating system, type of internet connection you’re using. These days, in order to better ‘engage’ web surfers, websites can be tailored dynamically to your connection speed, web browser, or operating system.

I haven’t even gotten into the ability to target users on Facebook and Myspace. Users have actually set up profiles on their own. Profiles that are used for targeted marketing campaigns!

If you’re the type that doesn’t like all this monitoring there are some ways to protect yourself: Internet Explorer and Firefox, allow you to disable cookies and prevent some forms of monitoring. Also, make sure you log out of websites such as MSN and Google and they won’t be able to individually track what you do.

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The results of a recent study on the attitudes of over 10,000 workers, conducted by Kenexa Research Institute were published in Workplace News. The most intriguing aspect of this study was the comparison of the attitudes of remote workers to the attitudes of colleagues working at their employer’s ‘bricks and mortar’ locations. The results indicated that remote workers:

• Feel more confident that their company has open and honest two-way communication.
• Are more likely to say they intend to stay with their organization.
• Have more favourable opinions of senior management.
• Feel that their immediate manager does a good job at managing people, treating them fairly and delivering useful feedback.

This appears to favour the implementation of a remote workforce and, for the most part, research has supported this assumption. The above statements can be traced back to the idea of work/life balance. An effective work/life balance has become extremely challenging these days. Thus, employers and managers who are more proactive in trying to cater to their employees’ work/life needs will inevitably fare better in opinion surveys.

However, a remote workforce does raise some unique challenges when the work environment changes. Take for example, a new software rollout. First, a software rollout needs to be effectively communicated to all employees, including the remote workforce. Second, employees need to be properly trained to use the new software. The logistics of implementing an effective training program becomes problematic when you are dealing with a fractured and separated workforce.

Research has shown that allowing employees to work from home delivers tangible business results, and the implementation of these programs shows no signs of slowing down. But this does not come without new communication and training challenges.

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