With all organizations undergoing significant change in reaction to COVID-19, use these tips to drive successful user adoption of new technology and tools for flexible working.

Technology is the tool that enables behavioural and cultural change. But simply implementing a technology isn’t enough to guarantee that it will end up being used. This is why user adoption is the most important part of any digital transformation your organization undertakes.

Shifting workplace culture when adopting a new product is key to its success. Fragmented and inconsistent technology adoption within an organization can lead to communication breakdowns and unproductive outcomes. This is especially true when it comes to managing communication and collaboration platforms that rely on the buy-in of everyone to succeed.

So with that in mind, if your organization is deploying a unified communications solution, there are some simple steps you can take to ensure user adoption.

Shifting workplace culture when adopting a new product is key to its success

Assess your organizational needs

Start by assessing your users to see how they communicate internally, externally and in their own teams. This will help you to figure out what communications tools they might need. Take a holistic look at all of your current technology infrastructure, and how it fits together. You should be able to tell which systems lack functionality. From here, you can design your UC solution to work with the devices and needs specific to your organization.

Create an advocacy team

The next step in this process is to identify an advocacy team within your organization, including a cross-section of business owners, end users and IT managers, and bring them in on the planning process. Make sure you get your management to fully buy-in to the need for UC. Once the C-Suite is on-board, the example they set will drive momentum for the rest of the company.

Deploy a marketing and training plan

Ahead of deployment and in the first few months after roll out, make sure you have a strong internal communications and marketing plan in place, to help you drive adoption. When training, always start by explaining why you’re making this change, before moving into how, so that your end-users really understand the benefits for them and the business. You can also identify departmental influencers or evangelists to champion the platform and be an official UC expert and source.

Deploying UC involves embracing an entirely new way of working, but it is one with major benefits for everyone, across the whole organization. Now, more than ever, UC is an essential tool for any business that expects to continue to operate in times of flexible working and distributed teams. Having a robust plan in place to encourage a change in culture around a specific technology is key to successful adoption across the business. Make sure yours includes the right stakeholders, C-Suite support and strong internal training and communications. With that in place, you’ll start to see the productivity benefits of your new ways of working in no time.