Take An Employee-First Approach For A Seamless Digital Transformation
There’s no escaping technology in business, and many companies are embracing the possibilities that digital transformation offers. Yet workers can be, understandably, resistant to the shift. To help your organization succeed in transforming digitally, Beyond Discovery Coaching suggests these strategies for achieving worker buy-in.
The Advantages of Digital Transformation
Though employees will remain vital to your company’s operations, technology gives you an edge. Digital transformation is a business strategy, notes Slack, that increases productivity, supports collaboration, and conserves resources.
Tech improvements may also improve the customer experience, alleviating strain on workers. Yet the positive impacts aren’t always visible to workers, especially when implementation happens fast. But with your team’s buy-in, technology transformation can serve business goals and support workers’ efforts.
Automate And Optimize With Business Process Management
Showing workers that technology can help them (without taking their jobs away) might be your first step when looking toward digital transformation. Business process management (BPM) streamlines processes and workflows to make tasks easier.
Taking repetitive or data-focused tasks and automating them improves efficiency and reduces errors. Yet monitoring and making adjustments is still a necessity, and that requires workers’ expertise. Involving employees in automation decisions and processes illustrates the importance of their input. It also ensures that the essential tasks in the business are addressed appropriately.
Removing time-consuming tasks from your employees’ to-do lists is a plus. But it also lets them divert energy to higher-level, more rewarding work, which is great for team morale. Dedicating more time to executive-level thinking gets new ideas circulating and could help the company grow even more.
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Establish Effective Communication
Many workers struggle with communication. Inefficient means of communication or an uncomfortable company “vibe” can contribute to poor communication and, as a result, workers may feel unsupported.
Focus on establishing a platform for effective communication, both in the technical and metaphorical senses. Set up organizational communication channels such as email, team messaging, group chats, and virtual calls with guidelines for each.
Creating a positive communication culture is more involved. Gallup highlights communication as one piece of the puzzle in building a better company culture. The way a team (and leadership) interacts is one way company culture shows up daily, so starting with communication is a good strategy for success.
Set Measurable Goals (and Support Progress)
Goal setting motivates teams and provides a channel for sharing (and celebrating) achievements. When used positively, formal goal-setting structures promote cohesive and supportive collaboration.
Common goal-setting strategies include KPIs and OKRs. KPIs (key performance indicators) are organizational checkpoints and OKRs (objective and key results) help teams work toward broader goals one step at a time.
Explore strategies that align with your company’s goals and appeal to team members’ professional styles. For example, workers might commit to OKRs more passionately when they set the objectives themselves.
Whatever system you set, give employees a platform to share their thoughts and progress regularly. A chance to share accomplishments and ask for help can make a difference in workers’ experience and improve outcomes.
Check In With Your Team
Part of showing your team they are a priority is making time to connect with them. Check-ins through regular (even weekly) calls are an avenue for employee improvement and a means of getting feedback for the company.
One-on-one meetings can help minimize your employees’ anxiety and build relationships that support better-quality work. Approaching one-on-one meetings with a clear agenda and an attitude of building your workers up (rather than listing out failures) helps you move forward together.
For business owners, technology is an invaluable tool. Knowing that your employees are the backbone of your organization, implementing business process management, and balancing the company’s digital transformation needs with the team’s is a must. With these strategies, you can reap the benefits of technology while creating a positive work environment that clearly values employees.
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Meet The Writer!
Derek Goodman is an entrepreneur. He’d always wanted to make his own future, and he knew growing his own business was the only way to do that. He created his site Inbizability, to offer you tips, tricks, and resources so that you realize your business ability and potential now, not later.
