Successful digital change management in the context of current and future challenges

“If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail”. Abraham Maslow was right: there’s more than one answer to the problems we’re currently experiencing, let alone those still to come. The crisis we’re going through at the moment is quite unprecedented. Businesses now need to start adding to their toolbox in order to prepare for what comes next and take effective action.

These tools, the ones we work with, must be carefully selected to ensure they make an effective contribution to change. I could tell you that the change is taking place now. But it’s not. Change is an ongoing journey.

For businesses, it’s time to start out on this new journey, taking their employees and managers with them. This journey has to be a digital one – we call it digital change management. Thinking about digital change management is one thing. Making a success of it is something else entirely. Did you know that 3 out of every 4 transformation projects fail? Yet anyone can access the success equation, despite our current and future challenges.

I want to share three ideas with you that will make sure your digital change management project is a success.

1- Employee engagement

Digital change management offers an opportunity to work on the powerful notion of engagement. But how do you engage, motivate and rally your staff without forcing them?

Engagement needs to be seen as an experience. An ongoing experience that can be tailored to suit each individual employee.

In the midst of today’s challenges and those still to come, engagement can be sorely tested: compulsory distancing, changes in usual practice, decreasing motivation… As businesses strive to maintain business continuity, it’s equally important to maintain human engagement.

Compare yourself with your employees’ favorite brands – the brands didn’t have to bully them to win their favor. So, what if you held the keys to becoming your employees’ favorite new brand? Not as ridiculous as it seems. All you need is a unique engagement experience, one that can be grasped via a variety of levers that guide people towards complete satisfaction and the achievement of their goals.

In these terms, the crisis is hugely accelerating the rate at which businesses are becoming aware of the need to go digital. Never before have we been so distant and yet so connected at one and the same time. But the explosion in remote working highlights the urgency of moving from talk to engagement.

Above all, this transition must be based on giving up the notion of top-down change management.

Check out how digitalize your change management to successfully support your teams in business continuity.

2- Giving up the top-down approach

Let’s go back to your employees’ favorite brands: the brands didn’t train your staff to get them to buy into their product/service/promise…

Forget about the classic top-down approach, whose message is: “I’m going to teach you and then you’ll be able to do it”. 3 out of every 4 change management projects fail because of an old-fashioned approach that does not achieve lasting employee engagement. When change is managed from the top down, collective engagement is in peril. There is even a risk that staff might use their individual potential to resist such change.

To prevent such withdrawal of goodwill and resistance to change, businesses must invest in their human capital. We should see the crisis we’re going through as an invitation to give meaning to what we do, without instructions from above.

Your employees are your super heroes: have faith in their potential, even from a distance.

3- Developing the business tool box

Current and future challenges make going digital in terms of change management an absolute necessity. Businesses must equip themselves properly if they are to make a success of their transformation projects. It’s no longer enough to have just one hammer to try and solve every problem!

Take training plans for example – does this lever work for all your staff, as a way of creating lasting engagement and helping them achieve their objectives one step at a time?

Today, personalizing the engagement experience is more crucial than ever. Some employees respond better to collaborative learning, others to gamification, trainings, indicator tracking, and so on. Adapting is about helping to personalize the engagement experience and achieve collective success with a transformation project. But, first and foremost, to adapt you have to be properly equipped.

Getting properly and sensibly equipped to manage a transformation project isn’t about offering employees and managers 50 different tools. It’s about having a digital change management platform that offers comprehensive management of all your transformation projects. Such a platform must use Artificial Intelligence to personalize each experience and guarantee continuous learning.

Artificial Intelligence is what drives digital change. It is fueled quite simply by data. By mass-processing data hitherto untapped by the company, Artificial Intelligence helps to understand each employee and guide them through the process of change successfully. Thus the right content is recommended to the right person at the right time. With a digital platform like InsideBoard, based on unique AI algorithms, everyone working at the company progresses both individually and collectively, and the result is a successful transformation project.

It’s not too late to change your approach and be one of the 25% of companies who achieve success with their transformation projects. To adopt an approach to change management that is suited to our current and future challenges, there are things that must, and can, be done – thanks to digital technology. With an employee-centric approach, the recipe for success is simple:

• Use individual potential to boost collective transformation
• Success indicators are the key to creating lasting motivation
• Bet on a digital adoption solution like InsideBoard. Its personalized levers will hugely engage your workers – even when working remotely. And in this way, you will also be upskilling your human capital!