There is hardly an industry that isn’t prone to frequent innovations. Whether working in IT, medicine, finance, or agriculture, you will undoubtedly run into new technologies that will improve your everyday dealings or be more streamlined.
You must know how to adapt to research and incorporate innovations quickly. And it is essential to understand how to help your employees adapt to new technology. People are naturally resistant to change, and you must spearhead innovation for your company.
In this article, we will explore how you can quickly motivate your employees and help them start relying on the new technology with surprising ease.
Why It is Important To Help Your Employees Adapt To New Technology
If you are a newcomer to employee management, you may feel that you need not worry much about how your employees will adapt to new technologies. All you need to do is to incorporate new technology and explain how it will improve your employee’s work process. Simple enough, right?
Well, not quite. If you do this, there is every likelihood that only a handful of employees will start using the new technology. Most will keep doing things the old way, regardless of how better the new technology is. Having half of the employees doing things the old way and the other half adapting to the changes will make a mess of your everyday operations.
Therefore, it is paramount that you know how to aid your employees during the learning process and how to motivate them to incorporate new technology as soon as possible.
How To Help
There is no universal way to help your employees adapt to new technology. Instead, you need to carefully consider your employees and the technology you are trying to introduce.
Only by doing so will you outline the right way for your company and avoid adoption setbacks. The following are different approaches you can take during the learning process.
1. Talk With Employees
Before introducing any new technology, it is best to talk with your employees and explain why you are doing so. While the reasons may be obvious to you, they may not be as apparent to your employees.
After all, they don’t have the complete understanding of the bigger picture like a manager has. Nor do they understand the different aspects of the technology you are introducing.
Explain briefly what the new technology is supposed to do and outline the benefits it will bring. Although there is a necessary learning curve, new technology is usually better for the user.
In some cases, outlining the benefits will be enough to motivate employees toward learning. But, while you talk about the new technology, engaging your employees and receiving feedback is important.
Expect they will have reservations at first, as learning new technologies can be quite difficult for some. But, the more you talk with them, the more they will open up to learning.
2. Provide Adequate Training
If you plan on introducing a new piece of technology that isn’t intuitive, you may need to invest in adequate training. While the technology may seem simple, know that your employees will find creative ways to misunderstand and misuse it.
And, unless you only have a handful of employees, you will hardly have the time to correct their mistakes and give them the proper pointers for learning. Furthermore, your employees might not feel inclined to report mistakes out of fear that their lack of understanding of it will inevitably show them in a bad light.
So, make things easier for everyone and hire a professional to train your staff. Sometimes, it can be easier for your employees to receive constructive criticism from someone who is not their boss. A qualified tutor will know what to say, how to react, and what pointers to give. Therefore, they will easily cut the learning process in half.
3. Gamify Their Learning Experience
One of the great things we’ve learned from video games is that people are quite willing to learn about complex systems and mountains of information. The only factor is how you introduce those systems and pace the information.
Companies increasingly turn towards gamification as a viable solution for employee training. A well-crafted training program will explain the basics of new technologies and motivate your workers to experiment with them. Try to implement levels, points, and score-boards. All of these can be effective tools in motivating workers to learn.
It is essential to mention that while gamification is quite powerful, it cannot cover all technologies. Complex systems aren’t easy to gamify, so even gamification isn’t the one-for-all solution. But, in certain instances, it can be just the way to help your employees adapt to new technology.
4. Give Employees A Clear Incentive To Use New Technologies
If nothing else seems viable, you can easily motivate your workers to use new technologies by providing rewards for doing so. Hand out bonuses, extra free time, and unique work privileges.
All these are clear incentives for workers to adopt new technologies. Workers who are open to these technologies will be more than happy to reap the benefits.
And those that aren’t so warm to learning new things might feel included to do so once they see their colleagues enjoying the benefits.
What is essential here is not to make employees compete with one another. If you provide a limited number of rewards for the entire company, you can easily ostracize certain employees and build resentment.
So, ensure your employees feel included to help each other and learn. You can even implement group rewards and encourage employees to help each other. They will motivate each other to push through the learning process.
Final Thoughts
One final thing you can mention to your employees is that learning new technologies is a part of the modern workspace. As we mentioned at the start of the article, every industry is prone to change.
And those that aren’t willing to adapt to new technologies tend to fall behind. The more they accept this fact, the easier it will be to help your employees adapt to new technology and use it as quickly as possible.
Helpful Resources:
- Getting Everyone on Board: Introducing New Technology and Systems in the Workplace
- Top 10 Countries Leading The World In Technology
- 10 Leadership Traits To Look For When Onboarding IT Employees
Author Bio: Luke Edwards worked as a business manager and project manager for over 15 years. He now focuses on writing helpful articles for companies like The Gentleman Mover. Luke’s passion is to empower employees to learn new skills that help improve their workplace performance.
