Timing

When should you consider USE?

When should I consider USE?

Investing in a change management solution to supplement your collaboration platform upgrade or purchase isn’t always a natural, primary thought. Instead, most IT organizations focus on how to implement their new solution properly, making sure the technology itself works as planned. Yet by doing so, the people who use the technology are often left behind, causing a disassociation with the new solution. Usually, you can notice this by paying attention to certain qualitative and quantitative aspects of the new technology:

What users say about it (both verbally and through formal feedback)

How users interact with it (i.e. how users address specific use cases)

How quickly users adopt it (and continue using it)

Time spent per user on it

Leakage rate (rate of people reverting to the old technology)

How easy it is to access helpful guides for learning it

It’s easy to fall into a reactive strategy, but you’ll know when it is a good time to invest in a change management program. Signals include:

When your employees:

Are still using multiple, competing collaboration technologies
Don’t understand how to use your collaboration technology
Are resistant to change

When you notice:

Employee usage is low
Employee productivity hasn’t changed
Senior leadership isn’t using or supporting the new collaboration technology

At the point of purchase is the best time to implement a change management strategy. Goals should be to:

Alleviate the possibility of end users shifting their behavior after a poor first introduction

Sync with the introduction of the product to improve awareness and keep interest high

Provide immediate answers to employee questions using the technology