Digital transformations within organizations require serious investments of time and budgets, but managing this change across employees is one of the key levers to increasing the impact of the transformation and getting it right. Employees, the actual ‘users’ of these digital interventions, need to learn and adapt to a whole new work lifestyle.
Training and support are usually planned to streamline the transition through the initial phase of the launch. However, we classically start designing the user experience (UX) journey only from the point our users begin interacting with our digital solutions. This may be a little late.
Since these initiatives often do not directly impact the end-customer and are internal to the organization, we entirely overlook planning a pre-launch marketing strategy to unveil the digital interventions that are going to come the user’s way. Yet, to get the maximum impact from your target employee/user base, it is important to market these digital interventions to them before they actually get down to working on it. Planning an effective employee user experience (UX) through the entire digital transformation can help you successfully shift the needle to meet this initiative’s planned outcome.
Think of it as internal advertising and marketing communication for the digital transformation that your company is making, and it should be the first touchpoint in your target user experience (UX) journey. The marketing communication should be rolled out before the launch of the digital initiative for it to help generate a positive and receptive environment within your user base and lead to improved and quicker digital adoption. You need to pique their interest, grab their attention, establish context and relevance of the intervention in their roles and connect with them on what will be of value to them. These strategies will help you convince your employees that the time they will spend on the application or new system has clear benefits.
Change for any individual is not easy, and when the change is an unknown entity, there is always skepticism and trepidation on what to expect. Further, digital transformations in organizations are classically a top-down approach and often the target users (employees in this case) have very little knowledge of why this change is really needed. What they need to know is ‘what’s in it for them’; and how will they be impacted for the better. You have won half the battle if you get your users to begin interacting with your digital applications in an engaged and receptive frame of mind, having understood what they are going to gain from it, instead of mentally kicking and screaming and with a ‘mandatory’ sword hanging over their heads!
It is a good idea to put aside a small amount for internal marketing from the big budgets you are investing on the digital transformation, to get the users mentally geared towards appreciating and looking forward to this transformation initiative.
So here are few tips to get your plan in place:
A little bit of creative planning and preparation will go a long way in gaining the acceptance and engagement of your employees for an upcoming digital transformation. While there is a lot more that can be done to build excitement, the tips in this article are a good starting point for your internal marketing plans, and will make all the difference between a well-executed and a poorly planned digital transformation.
– By Ishrat Shums, Chief – Global Marketing & Proposal Design
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Coming from a family of Engineers and Businessmen, Sunit charted a new path for himself and completed his Chartered Accountancy and Company Secretary courses in 1984 and 1990 respectively. He has a work experience of almost 35 years and has been associated with MPS since 2012. His areas of responsibilities include finance & accounts, budgetary controls , secretarial, tax, merger and acquisitions, legal and investor relations.
Prior to MPS, Sunit has served as the CFO and Company Secretary at Sir Shadi Lal Enterprises Limited, an agro based company having sugar factories and distilleries for a decade. Prior to that Sunit has worked with companies engaged in manufacturing and servicing. Mr. Malhotra is married and has two daughters, one is a Chartered Accountant like him and the other is an engineer pursuing her masters in Renewable Energy.