Beyond the sheep dip: The human-centred approach to tech adoption

by Rob Hubbard

Over the years, we've partnered with many medium and large, often complex organisations to drive the adoption of new technology among employees. Through this work, we've consistently found that the key to success is taking a human-centred approach - one that avoids simply pushing mandated software and training down from the top and blasting out generic comms messages.

Instead, our focus is on truly understanding the end-users: their context, their current situation and their needs. This deeper understanding allows us to gain insights into the real barriers and enablers for adoption. By doing this, we can make tailored recommendations for more holistic approaches that genuinely motivate and support employees to adopt the technology at scale.

Why sheep dip training alone fails

Humans are complex. While training is undoubtedly an important element, simply 'sheep dipping' people through a one-size-fits-all learning experience is seldom effective - different users have different needs. This approach leads to disengagement and, worst of all, a huge waste of productive time as employees are forced to learn things they will never actually use.

We take a much more targeted deployment of training and learning resources, ensuring they are relevant and valuable to the specific audience.

The holistic adoption journey

Effective technology adoption is more nuanced than just communicating a rollout date and providing training at the point of deployment. It requires a holistic, ongoing strategy that includes:

1. Targeted Communication: Getting the right messages to the right people, at the right time, in the right way.
2. Engaging Leadership: Actively involving the audience through senior leaders, Line Managers and internal tech Champions.
3. Robust Support Structures: Ensuring users have a reliable means to ask questions and resolve problems, ideally self-serve, once they start using the new technology.

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The power of self-service support

For support, we take an approach that evolves to become increasingly self-serve over time. This approach offers a significant win for both the users and the organisation:

• For Users: They get quicker answers through self-serve portals, knowledge bases and FAQ pages.
• For the Organisation: The need for resourcing the full support mechanism decreases over time.

Ultimately, successful technology adoption means bringing employees along on the journey with you. It involves being open and honest about the technology’s pros and cons, addressing their concerns proactively and building a supportive yet efficient ecosystem for learning and continued support.