Many organizations are planning to implement new HR technology.
74% of companies plan to increase spending on HR technology to address pressing talent needs
Although organizations seem to be planning to implement new systems, introducing new technology into an organization comes with its challenges. One of main pain points is getting every employee to onboard and use the technology. 82% of organizations struggle with adoption challenges. This is partly because change management is often needed when introducing new technology and new processes such as continuous performance management.
Adoption is not always easy, but there are tactics organizations can take to help their employees adopt their new performance management system. In this article, we provide tips on how to convince skeptical employees to adopt to your organization’s new performance management system.
1) Create and communicate your vision
Any leader of an organization can tell their employees about the new software being introduced, but if employees don’t know why things are changing and how they should be altering their behaviors, it will be hard to get people to use something just because they are told to. There needs to be a vision and purpose. We suggest answering a few critical questions before communicating the new performance management system to employees to avoid creating skepticism. Try answering the questions:
- How will this affect the day-to-day activities of the employees?
- How will the new system make life easier for employees?
- What are the new goals of implementing this new system?
- What are the expectations that employees need to withhold?
These answers need to be communicated to employees. Explain the benefits of how the new system. For example, if the introduction of the system was to allow more continuous feedback to be shared, explain why continuous feedback is important to the development of employees. Explain how the new system helps track the progression on objectives (if applicable) or how it will create more streamlined reviews. Remember, employees will have a hard time adopting a new system that they know nothing about. Make sure to share the vision, expectations, and benefits to all employees to help adoption.
2) Understand your employees and create ambassadors of change
When introducing a new performance management system, you need to be able to appeal to as many employees as possible. One way to appeal to employees is asking for their opinions on your new performance management solution. Pulse surveys before and after could be a way to gauge engagement levels.
Another important initiative is to create ambassadors for the product. Is there an employee that loves the idea of this solution? Or loves the idea of continuous feedback? Utilize these motivated employees during the initial roll-out! They can help motivate their peers to use the technology.
3) Create reminders
People can be resistant to changes, and many organizations struggle with non adopters of their newly implemented solution. This can be attributed to lack of process. It takes time and effort to change people. Hence, organizations need to establish clear processes during their initial roll-out. They need to revisit these processes every several weeks and tweak them if they are not working. For instance, create a reminder that every one has to use the system to share feedback every week. Overtime these processes become habitual and second nature to the employees.
Incentives to use the system may also be used; however, we do advise you to consider the sustainability of such initiatives.
4) Emphasize success!
If you have skeptics, prove them wrong! Celebrate all successes that you have with your new performance management system. Recognize the employee that shares or requests feedback the most! Collect the data, whether it be feedback or the goals that have been achieved and share those with all employees to showcase that the new system is truly helping develop employees and the organization. This also includes recognizing employees for taking part and embracing the system. Draw attention to the small and big wins, it will help convince the skeptics that the system is working and hopefully everyone can start rowing in the same direction!
Conclusion
As mentioned, the majority of the time when introducing a new initiative like a performance management system you are going to have skeptics. Organizations need to take steps to get ahead of them and really showcase the benefits of a new performance management system. Utilize your resources and your talent and execute the new technology well so that employees can begin to reap the benefits and get on board for the new system.
