How can a business move with the times? How can they keep track of ever-shifting paradigms in technology, consumer habits, and management trends?

By using the universal principle of digital adaptation: change. Adaptation is a move away from a conservative, ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’ approach. Instead, an adaptive business moves toward an experimental attitude of taking risks, overcoming failure, challenging the status quo, attacking the lethargic legacy culture, and emerging anew.

This dramatic rebirth involves adjusting technology, processes, and workforce management to increase the awareness of quickly evolving business needs. As the digital age re configures business, it drives the need for flexible, new approaches and efforts to tackle bureaucracy, achieving massive changes as part of a brave new digital landscape.

What Are The Benefits Of Digital Adaptation?

There are many advantages to digital adaptation.

1. Increased efficiency and productivity: Digital technologies used by a digital team deliver gains in efficiency and productivity by quickening processes and streamlining operations.
2. Better resource management: Resources are easier to manage more effectively through a digital adaptation strategy.
3. Greater resilience: Companies that employ digital adaptation endure obstacles better and show greater longevity via digital initiatives. IT leaders are crucial to implementation.
4. Increased agility: Digital transformation efforts promote fundamental changes, bolstering the ability to compete and thrive. Increasing modern technology spending is one method.
5. Improved customer engagement: With digital adaptation, customer intimacy grows as the public use more digital products in their personal lives.
6. Higher responsiveness: Tailoring technology within a digital culture to bespoke and changing needs increases the ability to respond quickly and effectively to market changes.
7. Greater innovation: Successful digital transformation initiatives drive greater innovations through digital means. Just what forms this takes is down to specific company needs.
8. Faster time to market: A business strategy with increased investment in digital transformation ensures products get to users quickly.

What Is A Digital Adaptation Strategy?

A digital adaptation strategy is simply a vision for change, prioritizing the need to adapt and innovate. Digital adaptation strategies require views from different viewpoints.

Creative departments view a digital adaptation strategy through digital marketing and user experience (UX). UX in this context is the notion that when customers meet their needs by discovering new items via utilizing search engines.  

Management consultants see digital adaptation as an opportunity to change a business radically. A company repositions closer to new business models. Products and services can become aligned with new technologies. Reduction in overheads leads to increased profits.  

Of these two viewpoints, both are correct. An effective digital adaptation strategy occurs when the two viewpoints combine through collaboration and liaison via business leaders.

Management consultants are necessary to improve internal processes. The creative department is needed to show customers the value of a business and its improved business practices in an appealing manner. But there is one unnamed piece to this puzzle.

From digital leaders to digital team members at every level, everyone contributes to fulfilling the vision of a digital adaptation strategy, allowing a company to become a global leader in its field.

The Value Of An Adaptive Approach

An adaptive approach ensures that the focus is always on the client or customer. The adaptive approach is essential to success, as feedback from the client helps measure effectiveness. 

The client must drive how changes occur within this, ensuring client loyalty and optimizing user-analytic skills within a company. In the best-case scenario, the client is included in every decision, ensuring they are satisfied with the end product.

An adaptive approach will always ensure that the focus is on change management. There should always be constant changes within a strategy as time goes by, as these are essential to ensuring endpoint success.

Prioritization is a crucial benefit of adaptability. When change is at the core of a company’s decisions, prioritization becomes a must. Continuous feedback is another precious asset. Clients, customers, and team members are a significant measure of success. 

How Does Digital Adaptation Intersect With Digital Transformation?

On the surface, much like companies Microsoft and Apple, digital transformation and digital adaptability seem very similar. However, much like this example of two companies producing hardware and software, the differences are vast.

When we look at any digital transformation, we see that it involves a time-limited plan. Conversely, digital adaptability requires a strategy rather than a plan. Digital adaptability needs ongoing review.

These two intersect because businesses can learn from their previous experiences of having created a digital transformation strategy in the past. The effect this had on team member attitudes and culture, resources required, challenges, triumphs can be recalled, along with the lessons learned. Lessons learned from the previous experience can be integrated into the digital adaptability strategy, increasing innovation and reducing dependence on legacy culture.

Why Is Digital Adaptation The Most Valuable Metric For Success?

The benefit of using digital adaptability as a measure for success is that it leads to gains while being a measure. Digital adaptability is ever-changing, allowing reaction and review of goals and how to achieve them. This use of digital adaptation as a measure of success is an excellent example of the value and significance of integrating digital adaptability into every aspect of a business.

Workforce Change: Delivering New Employee Models

For a new business adaptation strategy to achieve its aims, team members must adjust and change. Supported team members maintain new cultures of openness toward an effective digital strategy.

Complete digital transformation exists within a high-performance culture. The utmost significance of the strategy is understood and appreciated by all team members of each department. Without support, any such strategy will fail, and the desired digital revolution will be short-lived.

Access To Evolving Skills

IT leaders and senior management must carefully select easy-to-use software. This new software allows team members to train in new skills. All team members should know whom to refer to ask questions about new forms of training and if they struggle with skills or feel undertrained. Team members can also be given face-to-face demonstrations in groups to introduce new technology.

Collaboration

Managers and business leaders need to nourish collaboration between vastly different departments via sharing information at all development stages within projects. Partnership promotes strategy values because team members are always aware of other aspects of development within their own company. 

Implementing a company-wide intranet social media platform is one way to encourage collaboration via promoting each team member to embrace social media. Social media for internal communication can also create an awareness of essential skills, such as social media marketing.

Building The Talent Pool

A team that understands the values of a digital adaptability strategy and is empowered to practice these values is essential. A brand new team isn’t always needed, but some new team members may be helpful.

New team members at any level will quickly take on the culture and values of the current digital adaptation strategy as they enter the company. The benefit is for all team members as values are dispersed and discussed.

However, existing team members also need to feel included in decision-making to absorb and integrate new practices. All team members should have several opportunities to voice their views when constructing a new digital adaptability strategy.

Finally, senior management is at the forefront of a company culture change. Management is always aware of strategy values, and dialogue is kept open about views. If needed, a new management role, such as a Head of Digital Adaptability Strategy, can also be instated to coordinate a new digital strategy.

It may also be helpful to employ new team members skilled in change management to assist team members with the strategy’s changes. And one last action to consider is setting up an internal talent marketplace.

Five Ways To Achieve Total Digital Adaptation

1. Become Data-Driven & Analytical 

Data analytics and being data driven may seem dull as dishwater to some. It may seem like a paradox that they are essential to innovation, forming the core of a changing culture.

Analysis of data is of high significance within a digital adaptation strategy. Data needs to be collected to ensure the need for a digital adaptability strategy and how this should look.

Data must also be collected to ensure that the strategy facilitates more insights to minimize delays and reduce dated workflows. The process is ongoing, with the strategy reacting to all forms of digital disruption and other market changes.

2. Automate Simple & Complex Tasks

Digital adoption means accepting that every business now exists within a digital landscape. New digital means are therefore required.

As a result, business process automation tools such as artificial intelligence increasingly play a more prominent role in our everyday domestic tasks.

Think about how Spotify uses AI to predict music you might enjoy.

But AI can also play a prominent role in business, particularly for simple tasks. For example, internal processes such as scheduling tasks can be allocated to AI software to increase time spent by customer service team members, allowing them to dedicate more time to direct customer contact, improving the quality of customer experience.

Machine learning can help answer questions driven by what is likely to happen in the future and what the best decisions can be right now, which is particularly useful when predicting consumer behavior. Machine learning can also play a valuable role in more complex tasks, like driving decision support.

3. Get Connected

Social media can be an accessible form of digital technology for team members of every level and department to stay in touch in large organizations. Such use of technology promotes collaboration, leading to better practice of the values of the strategy within digital culture.

However, you can use social media and other digital communication methods to stay in touch with customers. Customer Experience (CX) is essential for tracking customer needs and how this relates to the strategy’s success.

The panel discussion can also effectively collect customer experience data in a more casual environment.

4. User Analytics

Parallels exist between team member attitudes and customer experiences of a new strategy. Both are at the heart of a successfully created digital adaptation.

Collecting data on customer experience allows data on the success of the customer-facing aspect of the strategy to ensure the effectiveness of future changes to digital operating models.

5. Process Management

At every stage, process management is key to the success of a new strategy.

Regularly taking audits and initiating discussion of how success is perceived at different points by different departments at all levels is essential.

Any changes to the strategy must then take place based on the feedback of team members, clients, and customers.

Keeping a positive change

A company can thrive with a competitive edge and comfortable market share using a business adaptability strategy through constant revaluation, risk-taking, and digital transformation efforts.

Each team member must have shared values regarding digital adaptation at every level. Employee experience is imperative. Otherwise, the benefits will not stick, and the business will become unsuccessful.

A responsibility matrix can also be highly useful in maintaining the values of a strategy. Team members at every level are empowered to carry out the strategy in a structured and meaningful way. 

Implementing a digital adaptability strategy can be challenging as some team members may wrongly feel that they are already engaged in the best practice, leading to inefficient processes.

Team members can ignore best practices due to inefficient processes, such as toxic practices. But all team members need to be supported to understand that it is essential to apply techniques that follow a digital adaptability strategy. Traditional businesses avoid toxic practices and become future-proof.

Team leaders and CIOs also look to organize teams to benefit both the company and each team member. Effective employee onboarding tailored to each new and existing team member is a large part of the success of a new strategy.

All team members see that such a strategy benefits themselves and their colleagues’ level of pride and empowerment. The business thrives long into the future following a successful business adaptability strategy.

The post What is Digital Adaptation? appeared first on Digital Adoption.

This process is crucial for businesses in every industry, not only software developers.

After all:

• Virtually every business in the global economy adopts new products
• The efficiency of the product adoption process impacts user productivity and software ROI
• It is up to organizations to develop their own product adoption processes

The right strategy can streamline adoption, accelerate learning, and improve user productivity – regardless of whether those users are in-house employees or customers.

Understanding the Product Adoption Lifecycle

The product adoption lifecycle actually begins before users come into contact with a product, at least according to some experts.

The complete product experience, for instance, embraces…

• The product itself
• Every interaction users have with a product
• Business functions that support the product

Viewed from this perspective, it becomes clear that the product adoption process begins well before users first come into contact with the product.

Let’s look at this journey in more detail.

Marketing and Sales

When evaluating problems and solutions to their problems, customers inevitably come across marketing content designed to influence their decision-making process.

From the business’s perspective, these marketing communications represent the earliest stages of the product adoption lifecycle.

Since these also represent part of the user journey, it is important to…

• Maintain brand consistency across every stage in that journey, beginning with marketing communications
• Create a marketing funnel that leads seamlessly into subsequent stages of the product adoption journey, such as training and development
• Coordinate marketing and sales efforts with business units that are responsible for other stages of the adoption process

Marketing and sales are important stages in the customer journey, since they help prepare users for what comes next. However, these stages are only one part of the entire product experience.

Customer Support and Technical Support

Support functions also play an important role in the adoption process.

There are several reasons why businesses should offer robust support to users:

• Support functions can help businesses gain insight into customer needs, which can further improve adoption efforts
• Users inevitably require a certain degree of support throughout the journey
• The degree of support offered by a business will affect important user metrics, such as retention, proficiency, and productivity

As with the other points mentioned here, it is important that customer and technical support functions coordinate their efforts with other units that focus on product adoption.

Onboarding, Training, and Development

Once leads convert into customers, the focus shifts towards onboarding and training.

There are several reasons why these are important for effective adoption:

• Onboarding familiarizes new users with a product, helping them to realize the product’s value promise and its potential
• Training improves user skill levels and increases their productivity, which increases the value they can extract from a product, as well as the chances that they will become long-term customers
• Accelerating time-to-productivity increases a number of other important metrics, such as engagement and the overall product value

Product value, it must be remembered, is relative and depends on skill levels, which is why training is so important.

Integration

No product exists in isolation.

Every digital product exists as part of a digital ecosystem, which is why a product should offer third-party integrations.

The more integrations that a product offers, the easier it will be for users to adopt that product and fit it into their existing workflows.

Even if a particular platform or solution is an “umbrella solution” that offers a wide range of functions, integration is still critical.

After all, new users must still import existing data and integrate other solutions that don’t fit inside the product’s umbrella.

Business Policies

Policies are the rules and procedures that determine how a business operates.

These also impact the adoption process since these policies dictate almost everything that a business does, including:

• How support staff interact with customers
• How business units design product experiences
• The character of the overall product experience

Policies reflect many aspects of an organization, from its culture to its strategy.

And, most importantly for this discussion, they directly impact the effectiveness of the product adoption cycle.

Technology

Last, but certainly not least, is the technology itself.

That technology comprises the core set of functions that customers pay for. 

Though it is tempting to focus primarily on the technology, this is clearly only one aspect of the product adoption process.

To ensure that the technology meets users’ needs, it is important to:

• Create products that are usable, functional, and relevant
• Follow design processes that are user-driven, such as lean and agile
• Use data and user input to continually improve products

With the right technology and the right approach to adoption, businesses can make dramatic improvements to critical user metrics – and ultimately their bottom line.

The post Why Every Business Should Understand the Product Adoption Lifecycle appeared first on Digital Adoption.

Also called the digital skills gap, this term refers to the gap between tools’ capabilities and employees’ actual skill levels.

This digital gap is a serious problem for many organizations, as we’ll discover in this article.

What the Digital Gap Is and Why It Matters

First and foremost, we should define the digital skills gap in greater detail.

Here are a number of trends that are influencing the digital gap:

• Digital innovation and disruption. Technological innovation is spurring massive changes across the digital economy. These changes, or disruptions, are creating a slew of business opportunities – as well as challenges. One of the consequences of this continual innovation is digital transformation.
• Digital transformation. Digital transformation is a type of organizational change that is fueled by technology. Though technology and innovation drive these changes, they depend heavily on employees. After all, if employees lack skills or motivation, then digital change efforts will be unlikely to succeed.
• Digital adoption. Digital adoption (see below) focuses on fully integrating digital tools into their environment. An effective digital adoption program produces employees that are more proficient, engaged, and productive. As we will discover later, digital adoption is an important way to reduce the digital skills gap.
• The digital gap. For the modern employee, keeping pace with technological changes can be quite the challenge. This gap between workers and their tools continues to grow each day, since technology is rapidly outpacing the abilities of the workforce.

The problems resulting from the digital gap can be very problematic for businesses, resulting in…

• Poor employee performance and productivity. One natural result of the digital skills gap is inadequate performance. Employees are not always to blame, however. In many cases, the gap occurs because employee training mechanisms have yet to catch up with the state of the digital workplace.
• Low software ROI. Software ROI depends directly on employee productivity. The smaller the digital gap, the more productive employees will be and the greater the returns on the software platform.
• Inability to innovate. Innovation can only occur when employees are fluent with their tools. As proficiency levels decrease, so does an organization’s ability to innovate, change, and evolve in the marketplace.

These issues have become more and more pressing for the modern enterprise, as a number of studies have revealed.

How to Close the Digital Gap with a Digital Adoption Strategy

The digital gap can be addressed and even eliminated – with the right digital adoption strategy.

A digital adoption strategy doesn’t simply focus on implementing new digital tools, it focuses on fully utilizing that software. 

Among other things, a digital adoption strategy emphasizes areas such as:

• Maximizing software utilization and ROI. Software is only valuable to the extent that it is utilized. If a workforce only uses half of a platform’s features, for instance, then the organization will only be realizing a portion of that tool’s potential value. For this reason, software utilization should be a central aim of every digital adoption strategy.
• Improving employee proficiency and productivity. Employee productivity and software utilization depend on skill levels – that is, on reducing the digital gap. For this reason, improving digital skills should be a main aim for digital adoption efforts.
• Streamlining the digital workplace. An effective, efficient workplace depends on minimizing the digital skills gap. It depends on, in other words, the successful adoption and integration of tools into the work environment.

As with any other business function, digital adoption programs should make use of the right technology.

How Digital Adoption Platforms (DAPs) Improve Adoption Efforts

Digital adoption platforms (DAPs) are digital training solutions specifically designed to improve onboarding, training, and adoption efforts.

They are built around a core set of features that include:

• Contextualized guidance. In-app, interactive guidance offers advice and training directly inside an application. This means that employees can learn practical skills without calling technical support or searching for answers. As a result, employees learn more quickly and become productive in less time.
• In-product walkthroughs. Software walkthroughs take users one step at a time through a specific task or workflow. These walkthroughs help employees learn software independently, efficiently, and without the need for any human intervention.
• Automation. Automation is another bonus feature offered by certain platforms, such as WalkMe’s adoption platform. Task automation not only frees up users’ time for more valuable activities, it also creates productivity gains, reduces errors, cuts costs, and much more.
• Software analytics. Software analytics make it easy to monitor how users interact with software. That information can in turn be used to identify users’ needs and improve training efforts.

Effective use of digital adoption platforms can dramatically improve adoption efforts across the entire organization.

Ultimately, the right platform and the right strategy can help organizations minimize the digital gap and its associated performance problems.

The post How to Close the Digital Gap Between Employees and Software appeared first on Digital Adoption.

In this article, we’ll outline an employee training plan template that can be put to work right away, so you can…

• Focus on more important tasks
• Have a go-to checklist that streamlines employee onboarding and training
• Simplify your workflow
• Create a training plan that can be measured and improved upon over time

Additionally, having a template can improve the employee experience by ensuring that training programs stay on track and deliver tangible results for each worker.

Let’s get started by explaining what the training plan template is and how to use it.

A Done-for-You, Ready-to-Deploy Employee Training Plan Template

We’ve divided the training plan template into several sections.

It is not necessary to include every section – instead, just focus on the ones that matter most to you.

1. Assess

The first step when creating your checklist, or template, is to understand the purpose of the training program.

In most cases, this will only need to be done once, when first designing the training template.

During this stage, trainers should understand and assess the purpose of the training plan – after all, that purpose will be used to define the training template’s goals.

• Business strategy
• Organizational needs
• Departmental needs
• Training needs
• Employees’ individual needs

Assessing each of these areas will help trainers define the content that will go into a training program.

For instance, if an organization is adopting Salesforce in order to improve sales performance, then the training strategy should focus on maximizing employee productivity as efficiently as possible.

2. Set goals

With the information collected above, it is time to set goals. 

Following the same example laid out above, an organization that wants to improve sales numbers would define a set of training goals that include metrics such as:

• Performance
• Time-to-competency
• Productivity quota
• Proficiency levels

These goals will act as guiding beacons for the actual training plan (covered below).

3. Develop a training strategy

A training strategy will articulate the overarching approach used by the training plan.

For instance, companies aiming to improve sales performance may articulate a strategy based on digital adoption solutions.

However, most training templates incorporate several components, not just a digital component.

For that reason, trainers should include sections such as:

• Human training
• Online training
• In-app training

A strategy, along with the other steps covered above, help lay the groundwork for the actual training plan.

4. Outline the employee training plan template

With all of the preliminary data in place, it is time to actually create the employee training plan template.

This template should include:

• Specific steps in the training journey. A single step, or action item, would be, for instance, “have the employee conduct a product tour for Salesforce.” 
• Stages that encompass those steps. Stages are longer-term phases that encompass several action items. The onboarding stage, for instance, would focus on early-stage training, such as software onboarding steps, such as product tours.
• Goals for each step. Goals should include tasks and, when necessary, performance metrics. If an employee is required to take a test, then the goal should also include, for instance, a minimum grade in order to mark the task as complete.

Include steps such as:

• Explanation of the training program. One of the very first items to include on the template is an explanation of the training agenda. This explanation will help employees learn what is in store and what is expected of them.
• Workplace tours. A tour of the workplace usually takes place during new hire orientation on the first day of work. These tours are essential first steps in any training process, since they help employees get the “lay of the land” and better understand the context that they will be working in.
• Product tours. Product tours familiarize users with a new product, usually in under a few minutes. These take place within an application and are implemented using DAPs.
• Product walkthroughs. Product walkthroughs, or software walkthroughs, are in-app training sequences that take users through a series of tasks automatically. These walkthroughs are becoming more and more common, thanks to DAPs, which can alleviate much of the training burden from human trainers and technical support staff.
• Offline training schedules. An offline training schedule should include: meetings with mentors, classroom training sessions, workshops, training sessions with coworkers, and other relevant training schedules. This section of the template should be customized to meet the needs of individual employees.
• Online training schedules. Online training, such as webinars, video courses, and other online training materials, should also be tailored for individual workers. 

Also, each step in the employee training journey should include a description and a set of goals that relate back to the previous steps.

5. Optimize

Trainers should not be afraid to adjust their template over time.

Each time the training plan is executed, they can learn from the experience, then use that information to make further enhancements.

A general optimization approach could look something like this:

• Collect data
• Learn
• Improve
• Rinse and repeat

For best results, track training performance through DAP software analytics, training tool analytics, and other similar data sources.

The post An Employee Training Plan Template You Can Use in Minutes appeared first on Digital Adoption.

An onboarding program that is properly designed and implemented can help:

• Improve employee engagement
• Increase productivity and performance
• Boost long-term employee retention

And much more. 

However, there are a few mistakes that can hurt an onboarding program’s results.

Let’s look at some common pitfalls that can ruin onboarding efforts.

Top Mistakes to Avoid When Onboarding New Hires

The biggest pitfalls to avoid include…

Not automating

Automation can deliver major benefits to the modern, forward-thinking HR department.

With the right automation approach, new employee onboarding efforts can become:

• Faster
• More efficient
• More effective
• More affordable

Many aspects of the onboarding program can be automated, such as:

• Paperwork and documentation
• Correspondence and communication
• Digital onboarding and training

With the right tools, such as digital adoption platforms (DAPs), HR professionals can slash their workload and make major improvements to the onboarding process.

Not using modern training methods

In the modern work world, perpetual learning is fast-becoming the norm.

To keep up with the pace of change, employees must continuously learn new skills – and organizations must find ways to train them.

Traditionally, training has been delivered in person, through classrooms or via on-the-job apprenticeships.

However, the fast-paced work world demands a different approach. 

Traditional training techniques are problematic for several reasons:

• Human-led training is too costly and cannot be scaled
• Software is constantly being updated, which means that training material must also be constantly updated
• Video courses, text, audio, and other content cannot be personalized, which means employees must learn extraneous information that never gets used

Digital adoption platforms, mentioned above, overcome the limitations listed above.

Because they are automated and personalized, they can operate efficiently and effectively at any scale.

Not preparing workspaces – physical or digital

The new hire’s first day on the job is easily one of the most important.

After all, during the first day:

• Employees form their first impression of the organization, their new job, and their team
• A new hire must become oriented to the digital work environment, the social work environment, and so forth
• The pace and tone is set for the rest of the onboarding process … if not their entire tenure at the company

Unfortunately, however, some organizations fail to properly prepare a workspace for newly hired employees.

This can make a poor impression, make it difficult for them to acclimate, which can increase stress levels.

To prevent such problems, HR professionals and the employee’s department should prepare a workspace by:

• Ensuring that employees are provided with a desk and all the tools they need, such as a computer, a telephone, and office supplies
• Setting up all relevant digital accounts beforehand
• Providing employees with contact information for HR, managers, and other support staff
• Preparing coworkers by explaining the new hire’s role and where they will fit in

The right preparation can make a huge difference in how the new hire is received and how they perceive the new workplace – which will, in turn, affect their engagement and performance.

Not optimizing the onboarding program

Onboarding efforts can have significant benefits for employees, but only if they are structured appropriately and optimized.

In other words, an onboarding program should be:

• Data-driven. The right use of data, as we will see below, will keep a program centered around employees’ needs and quantifiable performance metrics.
• Adaptable and flexible. Agility is a must in the modern organization, so HR professionals should adopt mindsets and business practices that are based on responsiveness, not static procedures.
• Built around specific performance goals. Onboarding can impact specific employee metrics, such as employee productivity, time-to-competency, employee engagement, and employee retention. To understand the impact of onboarding efforts, these goals must be targeted and tracked.

To effectively optimize an onboarding program:

• Understand the potential benefits of employee onboarding
• Setting clear, achievable goals
• Defining metrics and KPIs to track performance
• Collecting data and employee feedback
• Analyzing that information to gain insights into the onboarding program’s performance
• Making adjustments as necessary

The more well-structured and sophisticated the onboarding effort – and the more it is optimized over time – the better the outcomes will be.

Not learning from employees

Employee data can provide a valuable lens into the effectiveness of the onboarding program.

It should not be the only data source, of course.

But understanding the employee experience from their eyes will help HR professionals design an onboarding program that is relevant and useful.

There are several ways to keep an onboarding effort centered around employees:

• Connect with them in person to learn about their needs and perspectives
• Use software analytics to better understand software onboarding and training needs
• Conduct post-exit surveys when employees leave a company, to learn why they left and what to improve

Taking a data-driven approach to onboarding new hires can help reduce bias and keep programs focused on real-world information, rather than preconceived notions.

As a result, HR professionals will be able to keep employees happier – while also adding more value to the organization.

The post Are You Making These Mistakes When Onboarding New Hires? appeared first on Digital Adoption.

As many businesses are discovering, traditional training methods simply cannot keep up with the fast pace of change in today’s digital workplace.

Why Effective Employee Onboarding Requires a New Approach

Human-led training approaches, such as classroom training – or even online teaching – suffer from a number of problems, particularly when it comes to software onboarding and training.

For instance:

• Many enterprise-grade SaaS platforms are complex, sophisticated tools, many of which carry steep learning curves, making it difficult for human trainers to continually onboard new hires
• Software is continually being updated and upgraded, which means that employees must continue to reskill, relearn, and in some cases “re-onboard” existing software products
• Human-led software training is simply too costly to maintain and scale

Certain online training methods, such as video courses or text-based self-teaching, solve some of these problems.

However, they too are insufficient.

Online teaching:

• Also carries heavy administrative and maintenance costs
• Doesn’t offer content that is personalized, immediate, or context-based, which increases waste and irrelevant information
• Is not interactive, which means it is less engaging

Fortunately, there is a solution to this problem – in-app software onboarding.

Digital adoption platforms (DAPs) deliver an innovative, revolutionary approach that overcomes the vast majority of the problems covered above.

Let’s explore five reasons why DAP-based onboarding outperforms the other training approaches covered above.

1. Contextualized, Interactive Learning

Human instructors can provide teaching over their students’ shoulders, guiding them as they work.

And although this interactive teaching method can help students learn as they go, it is certainly not scalable or practical in the modern work environment.

Also, when teachers train students, those trainees are not learning within an actual work context. At best, they are learning within a simulated work context, which is not quite the same as the real work environment.

DAPs overcome this problem by quite literally onboarding and training employees within a target software program.

This means that…

• Employees learn directly in the context of their native software application, as well as their actual work duties
• Interactivity – something that most online teaching approaches cannot deliver – improves trainee engagement
• Contextualized learning is experiential, offering immediate gratification and feedback, which improves knowledge retention

DAPs deliver such context-based learning through product tours and walkthroughs, which we’ll look at next.

2. Product Tours

A product tour introduces a product’s features and functions to users, quickly and efficiently.

These types of in-app tours are excellent onboarding tools, because they:

• Help users grasp the fundamental value proposition and functionality of a program 
• Reduce the anxiety and uncertainty associated with learning a new application
• Enable employees to start using a program’s basic features right away
• Ease the transition between initial onboarding and more in-depth training

Incidentally, these tours are also used during customer onboarding to increase conversion rates and simplify the customer onboarding experience.

3. Software Walkthroughs

A software walkthrough, or a product walkthrough, helps users learn a specific workflow.

Here is how they work:

• Pop-up bubbles appear inside the application, telling users exactly what they need to do to complete a specific step
• Users complete that step, then pop-up guidance continues to lead them step-by-step until they finish the task at hand
• If necessary, users can repeat walkthroughs as many times as needed until they are fully proficient at a task

When using DAPs to onboard and train employees, walkthroughs such as these become fundamental building blocks of the product adoption process.

4. Software Analytics

Another key reason why DAPs outperform other eLearning tools is because they track user behavior directly inside an application.

If a company uses a learning management system or a similar tool to train employees, that tool cannot track how employees interact with the software.

As a result, trainers cannot accurately gauge the effectiveness of their training.

DAP software analytics, in other words…

• Allow trainers to gain deep insight into how users’ perceive, understand, and interact with a software platform
• Guide the development and improvement of onboarding and training efforts
• Can provide more accurate measurements of the ROI of onboarding, training, and software

Analytics can be one of the most useful tools in an onboarding toolbox, but only if it is used properly.

This requires making a commitment to data-driven training, continual improvement, and an agile business approach.

5. Automation

Automation applied in HR can dramatically reduce HR workloads, streamline workflows, and increase productivity.

When it comes to employee onboarding, DAPs can automate:

• Product tours
• In-app walkthroughs
• Technical support queries

This automation relieves the burden on technical support staff, HR personnel, and others involved with employee training.

Naturally, not everything can be automated, nor should it.

However, with the right strategy and approach, automation can significantly improve the effectiveness of employee onboarding efforts.

The post 5 Reasons DAPs Deliver More Effective Employee Onboarding appeared first on Digital Adoption.

This is not really HR’s fault, however – or the fault of any other business unit.

It is really a result of the rapid pace of change in today’s digital economy.

Since digital disruption is driving transformation at such a rapid pace, many organizations are having difficulty keeping pace with these changes.

One of the biggest problems that organizations face today is the digital skills gap.

Since digital technology is advancing so rapidly, employees must continually learn new skills and software.

Training employees often falls on the shoulder of employers … but in many cases, their onboarding and training efforts prove to be inadequate.

Why Most Digital Onboarding Efforts Fail

New employee onboarding is an essential stage in the employee life cycle.

Done right, a digital employee onboarding program can improve engagement, productivity, and even employee retention. 

However, there are a number of difficulties that must be overcome, such as:

• The inherent complexity of SaaS platforms. Today, there are countless enterprise software tools, many of which carry hefty learning curves. This complexity is a problem for new hires, who must learn those tools in order to become productive.
• Workflows that span multiple tools. In many work environments, workflows require that employees use several tools. This only adds to the complexity of the digital workplace, increasing the chances that employees will become confused and frustrated during the onboarding process.
• An ever-changing work environment. Compounding the issue, today’s work environments are in continuous motion – new software is adopted regularly, workflows change, and tools are updated. This means that employees must learn continuously and organizations must provide them with reliable, adequate training.
• Traditional onboarding and training approaches that can’t keep up with the changing digital work environment. Given the factors just mentioned, it is no surprise that traditional onboarding and training techniques have become obsolete. In a world where digital tools change by the day, organizations must find new methods that can help integrate employees into their new work environments.

A good digital onboarding strategy – when used with the right tools – can deliver a number of benefits, such as those covered below.

The Importance of Proper Digital Onboarding

Good digital onboarding is not an option, it is a necessity.

An ineffective new onboarding process can increase confusion, frustration, burnout, and turnover.

But a well-structured digital onboarding effort can result in…

• Improved worker proficiency, productivity, and performance
• Reduced confusion and frustration
• Increased satisfaction and engagement
• A better overall workplace experience

However, as mentioned, most traditional training approaches simply cannot keep up. 

Classroom training – or even its online counterpart, including video courses – aren’t sufficient for the evolving needs of the modern workforce.

The solution lies in exploiting the latest innovations in digital onboarding and training – digital adoption solutions.

Why a Digital Adoption Platform (DAP) Is a Must-Have for New Employee Onboarding

A digital adoption solution – otherwise known as a digital adoption platform (DAP) – is a must have for any organization that wants to streamline onboarding and improve employee productivity.

Digital adoption platforms are digital training solutions that offer:

• Interactive product tours. Product tours introduce a product’s features to users, automatically familiarizing users with that application. These tours can help employees begin using a software tool right away, while also lowering confusion and frustration.
• In-app walkthroughs. An in-product walkthrough takes users through a series of steps in a workflow, without the need for human intervention. These walkthroughs dramatically improve knowledge retention and productivity, since employees learn experientially.
• Software analytics. Analytics track how users interact with their software tools. This information, in turn, can be used to assess the health of digital onboarding efforts, identify weak points, and improve them over time.

Using these platforms to fuel the digital side of new employee onboarding programs can help deliver a wide range of benefits, including:

• A simplified onboarding experience. As mentioned earlier, the complexity of the modern workplace is one of the biggest hurdles to new employee onboarding. Digital adoption platforms simplify that complexity by providing personalized, automated guidance during the onboarding process.
• Accelerated training time. Digital adoption platforms provide pertinent information in the moment of need. Employees no longer waste time learning irrelevant information, which dramatically increases their time-to-productivity.
• Scalability. Scalability is another enormous benefit offered by these programs. Since these platforms are automated, they can operate with the same cost-efficiency at any scale.
• Greater engagement and performance. When employees have all the information they need right at their fingertips, there will be fewer productivity lags – and new hires will be more satisfied, more confident, and more engaged. 

With the right tools and the right onboarding strategy, HR professionals can significantly improve the results of their digital onboarding efforts.

Interested readers can learn more about digital onboarding, training, and adoption by visiting our digital adoption blog.

The post Why Most New Employee Onboarding Efforts Fail at Digital – And What to Do About It appeared first on Digital Adoption.

Since employee productivity depends on their skill levels with business software, a robust training function is essential in the digital workplace.

In this article, we’ll explore training and coaching solutions in detail, including:

• Why training is so difficult for digital enterprises
• Why most training efforts get mediocre results
• How digital adoption solutions (DAPs) can transform training programs

To start with, let’s learn about modern enterprise training in detail – what it is and why it matters.

Training and Coaching Solutions for the Digital Enterprise

Enterprise training refers to employee training efforts designed to keep employees productive in the workplace.

Why enterprise training is a necessity

However, workplace training is not an option for most organizations, it is a must.

There are several reasons why:

• Most organizations implement tools, such as software, that are only used in a business setting
• To be productive at those tools, employees must learn to use them
• Employers must train their workers on many platforms, such as those that are used exclusively in business settings
• Organizations and software tools are undergoing continual change, which means that employees must become perpetual learners

To keep up in today’s digital economy, effective training is a requirement, both for organizations and employees.

Why training is so difficult for the modern enterprise

Unfortunately, training is not always a simple proposition.

There are several challenges that an organization must overcome in order to effectively implement training programs:

• Most traditional training approaches cannot scale
• People forget information quickly unless they apply it
• Ineffective training delivers poor results … and frustrates employees
• Most training solutions can’t keep up with modern enterprise training needs

On top of these issues, many training efforts fail to deliver as expected.

Why most training solutions deliver mediocre results

To be effective, digital training efforts should deliver information quickly and efficiently. They should also be practical and relevant.

However, many employee training programs fail to deliver, due to reasons such as:

• A lack of interactivity
• Constant administrative requirements
• Limited personalization

Overcoming these problems is the first step towards developing training solutions that are both effective and scalable.

Why digital adoption platforms (DAPs) beat other training solutions

Digital adoption platforms (DAPs) are modern training platforms that provide in-product training.

They are UX layers that operate independently of their target platform, which enables them to create training pathways that are completely customized and fully automated.

DAPs outperform other training software – not to mention traditional human-led training approaches – because they are:

• Interactive
• Contextual
• Scalable
• Immediate
• Relevant
• Personalized

There are training solutions that deliver some of the benefits just listed, however most fall short in some area or another.

Online teaching, for instance, can deliver content through webinars, video, text, or a variety of other formats. Because it is on-demand, it can be scaled cost-efficiently.

However, online teaching can only be personalized to a certain extent. 

And productivity dips when users are forced to search for answers on a topic or call technical support.

In contrast, DAPs avoid all of these problems.

How DAPs work

DAPs are, as mentioned, are UX and training layers that operate separately from their target platforms.

What makes them unique is that they deliver training directly inside of software.

They offer a core set of features, including:

• In-app walkthroughs
• Contextualized assistance
• Product tours
• Software analytics
• Task automation

In conjunction with a solid digital adoption strategy, DAPs can literally transform an organization’s in-house training efforts.

Since the pace of organizational change will only continue to accelerate in the digital age, organizations that want to remain competitive should implement robust training solutions such as these.

The post Training and Coaching Solutions for the Digital Enterprise appeared first on Digital Adoption.

In this comprehensive guide, we’ll explore the DAP inside and out, covering:

• The definition of the DAP
• How organizations use DAPs to improve workforce metrics
• Why software training inevitably leads to digital adoption
• A step-by-step process for implementing DAPs 

And much more.

We’ll start by looking at the basics of the digital adoption platform – what it does and how it is used.

The Digital Adoption Platform (DAP) Defined

In short, a digital adoption platform is a cutting-edge software training solution that can transform the way that users learn a software program.

Unlike traditional training methods, DAPs train users automatically and without any human intervention.

And, unlike other training software, DAPs deliver greater levels of personalization and interactivity – which can completely revolutionize training approaches, as well as results.

DAPs get results such as these through a set of key features that include:

• In-app walkthroughs. In-app walkthroughs take users step-by-step through a series of actions. In essence, this is like having a tutor walking someone through a workflow … without the need for human assistance. 
• Product tours. A product tour takes users through a product’s key features. Tours are like walkthroughs, except they are designed to introduce a product and help users become familiar with the interface. Tours such as these can improve conversion rates during trials, streamline onboarding, and more.
• Contextualized guidance. DAPs deliver their training directly inside an application, which reduces the time lag between learning and application. This increases knowledge retention dramatically, which, in turn, improves time-to-competency and time-to-productivity.
• Task automation. Some platforms, such as WalkMe’s DAP, can automatically perform tedious, repetitive tasks. This frees up employees’ time for more valuable activities, which increases engagement and results in massive productivity gains for the organization. 
• Software analytics. Software analytics are used to track software usage, which presents insight into user behavior, training needs, and much more. This enables an unprecedented ability to analyze training programs at a granular level, then make detailed adjustments to training walkthroughs – which, again, are all delivered automatically.

To sum up: DAPs are cutting-edge platforms that open up new possibilities when it comes to user onboarding, training, and adoption.

However, to make full use of these training platforms, it pays to gain a deeper understanding of digital adoption and other related concepts.

Key Concepts and Terms

DAPs are built upon digital adoption, a comprehensive business strategy aimed at improving software utilization, productivity, and ROI.

Unlike training, which focuses mostly on skills development, adoption takes a holistic view of software’s role within its users’ digital environment – whether those users are customers or employees.

Let’s look at some important concepts that can help us better understand DAPs:

Onboarding

Onboarding is an important stage within the adoption process, and, depending on the marketplace or industry, goes by different names.

These include:

• Product onboarding
• User onboarding
• Software onboarding
• Employee onboarding

The first three terms in this list are often used to describe the same process.

Namely, onboarding revolves around:

• Introducing a product to users. Before people can begin using a product, they must be introduced to its core features. Product tours are designed to do just that. These interactive tours show the key features of an application briefly and quickly, in order to demonstrate its functionality and potential value.
• Providing initial training. The faster a user can become productive with a product, the more quickly they will engage with it and stay on board for the long term.
• Simplifying the initial software experience. Complex software can be daunting to new users, which can increase frustration and confusion. These, in turn, can depress engagement and retention rates – the remedy is to simplify the software experience, ideally by providing interactive assistance as soon as users log in for the first time.
• Ensuring that users have access to adequate support. Readily available support is another key to successful onboarding. That is, users should be able to contact technical support or customer support quickly and easily. 

Employee onboarding refers to the integration of an employee into a new working environment.

Though this includes other connotations and meanings, it also involves software onboarding. After all, today’s new hire must inevitably learn new digital software as they enter the workplace.

Training

Training is another critical element of the adoption process.

Depending on the circumstances, training can be referred to as:

• Employee training
• User training
• Software training
• Product training

When discussed in the context of digital training, these terms almost always refer to the same process.

Training, that is, involves:

• Improving skills and proficiency. Training’s primary aim is increasing user skill levels, which is, in turn, necessary in order to realize the full value of a product. However, as we will soon discover, organizations should expand their aims to include digital adoption, customer growth, and other strategic goals.
• Ensuring that end users can become productive. User productivity is an important aim of training. Although that productivity depends on proficiency and skills, it also depends on engagement, motivation, the user experience, and other variables. Training programs, therefore, should also be designed to keep users engaged.
• Maximizing knowledge retention, while minimizing costs. Training costs depend a great deal on the training method being employed. In the digital age, automated training solutions are ideal, because they are efficient, scalable, and interactive – in short, they maximize knowledge retention at a minimal cost.

Whether the end users are customers or employees, the end goals are nearly the same: improving proficiency, productivity, and performance.

However, this purpose is rarely the true end goal – user performance always serves the greater aim of adoption.

Adoption

Adoption is the ultimate purpose that drives training and, like the other concepts covered above, can go by different terms.

These can include:

• Digital adoption
• Product adoption
• Software adoption
• User adoption

Despite an overlap in their meanings, each term does have its own specific definition.

Product adoption, for instance, focuses on the product itself.

Digital adoption, however, takes a higher-level perspective and also includes the context of which that product is a part.

Digital adoption is defined as:

Achieving a state in which digital tools are being used as intended, and to their fullest extent.

The semantic differences between these terms may seem small at first glance.

However, those differences can have a large impact on how an organization structures its adoption efforts, which tools it uses, and the results it can achieve.

Frequently Asked Questions About DAPs

By answering some of the most commonly asked questions about digital adoption solutions, we can gain a better understanding of their uses and benefits.

What are the advantages of using DAPs vs. other training approaches?

There are plenty of training methods to choose from, including:

• In-person training
• Online teaching
• Other training software

Each of these approaches has its benefits, but DAPs have a number of advantages over other approaches.

DAPs are:

• Interactive – Users can simultaneously interact with the training software and the software they are trying to learn. DAPs guide users interactively, which provides hands-on experiential learning.
• Scalable – Businesses of any size can use DAPs to train their employees or customers. The same cannot be said of other training methods, which often become cumbersome and costly as the number of users increases.
• Personalized – Because training is delivered in context, at the moment of need, users received an unprecedented level of personalization. This ensures that training is relevant, useful, and beneficial, which increases user engagement and productivity.
• Automated – DAPs’ in-product training is fully automated, giving trainers more time to focus on designing walkthroughs and training programs. 

Certain training methods have some of these advantages.

Live in-person teaching, for example, can be interactive and it offers a certain amount of personalization.

However, it is not scalable and becomes very impractical as class sizes grow.

What are the most common use cases for DAPs?

DAPs are useful for:

• Employee training and productivity
• Enterprise software implementation
• Promoting software features or additional products
• Customer adoption, growth, and retention

Generally, these use cases cover two groups – enterprises that want to train employees and product creators that want to onboard and train customers.

In both cases, DAPs can vastly improve the user experience and generate big boosts in software ROI.

Who managers DAPs within an organization?

The answer varies from organization to organization, but typically digital adoption is handled by a number of team members, including:

• Digital adoption managers. As the title suggests, digital adoption managers are tasked with managing an organization’s digital adoption function. In many organizations, this job role focuses on in-house digital adoption – ensuring that employees effectively adopt and use new software. In other organizations, they may focus on customer acquisition and adoption, though the job title may differ.
• Digital engagement managers. The duties associated with this job should also be self-evident from the title. Digital engagement managers are concerned with how users engage with their products. 
• Training managers. Training managers solely focus on improving users’ proficiency with a tool or a set of tools. In the digital workplace, training must, of course, extend its focus beyond a single tool or platform. Instead, trainers must maximize cross-platform skill sets and focus on the efficiency of the entire digital workplace.
• Employee experience managers. The employee experience covers every aspect of an employee’s interaction with a brand. That experience begins from the first time a company initiates contact with a company, then ends after departure. Digital onboarding, training, and adoption are all included within this process.

Typically, those in charge of digital adoption should:

• Have strong communication skills
• Deal with people on a regular basis
• Be ready to train users using data-driven technology and techniques
• Be in HR, training, experience management, or a similar role

In short, since digital adoption involves onboarding and training, a business’s digital adoption function should be delegated to team members with the appropriate skills and authority.

What is digital adoption?

Digital adoption means using technology to its fullest extent and for its intended purpose.

It is a process that aims to:

• Support digital transformation efforts. Today, all organizations are undergoing digital transformation to a certain extent. That is, due to the disruptive effects of technology, businesses must adapt their operations in order to survive and stay competitive. 
• Maintain a proficient, productive workforce. Proficiency and productivity go hand-in-hand, which is why these are a major focus of adoption and training programs. Digital adoption, however, extends its focus to include many of the other points discussed here.
• Integrate digital workflows. Proficiency in a single platform is usually not sufficient to guarantee productivity in today’s digital work environment. Employees will often be required to use multiple platforms in order to complete their day-to-day tasks, which requires competency in each of those tools. 
• Help businesses become digital-first enterprises. Many businesses realize that a digital-first business strategy is necessary to survival in the digital economy. This entails the adoption of new technology, customer-centric business strategies, data-driven business processes, and so forth.
• Provide a permanent, effective training function. Perpetual learning is becoming a permanent part of the modern organization, which means that employees must continually train, upskill, and reskill. Having a digital adoption function ensures that employees are always skilled and productive.

Among other things.

Modern businesses understand that “software deployment” and “software training” is just not enough.

Ultimately, software implementation and training support other business endeavors, such as digital transformation or customer growth.

For reasons such as these, it is critical that businesses focus on the larger strategic picture and create digital adoption programs.

What is a digital adoption strategy?

Digital adoption strategies are, as just mentioned, designed to support larger imperatives, including:

• Digital transformation. As mentioned, organizations are continually transforming in order to keep up with the changing economy. Effective transformation depends on, among other things, the ability to integrate software into the workplace, quickly and efficiently.
• Organizational change. Many changes involve – or even stem from – the adoption of new technology. Such organizational changes are not guaranteed to succeed and depend on employee support, effective user training, a structured change management approach, and so forth.
• Maintaining and improving employee proficiency and productivity. An organization’s performance depends on its employees’ performance – and that performance depends on how well they can adopt and use digital technology, among other things. 
• Maximizing software ROI. A product is only valuable to the extent that it is used. If, for instance, employees at an organization only sporadically use a software program, then that platform will only deliver a fraction of its potential ROI.

To support these aims, digital adoption efforts revolve around issues such as:

• Improving software users’ experiences
• Streamlining the onboarding process
• Increasing user retention
• Making products more usable and useful
• Training users as quickly and efficiently as possible

These strategies can then be hard-coded into an action plan, or a roadmap, that defines how businesses will adopt new software, onboard new users, and so forth.

Which businesses can make use of DAPs?

Typically, there are two types of businesses that can make use of DAPs – product creators and businesses that implement software internally.

Product creators use DAPs to, for instance:

• Improve the customer onboarding experience. Good customer onboarding funnels help new users learn a product quickly, efficiently, and without friction. A good experience will increase the chances that users make it to the next stage of the customer life cycle. The ultimate goal is that they become loyal for the long term.
• Increase conversion rates during software trials. First impressions matter, which is why most product developers incorporate some form of training into their software trials. Product tours and basic walkthroughs can improve users’ experience during software trials, which can increase conversion rates and customer growth.
• Teach users how to use a software program. Simple apps may not need any user training functions. However, the more complex the app, the more necessary it is to include interactive training. Games and enterprise-grade SaaS platforms, for example, can benefit from the inclusion of in-app training.

Enterprises, who adopt software for in-house use, focus more on:

• Employee proficiency, productivity, and performance. Employee performance improves organizational performance, as mentioned above. DAPs outperform other training software, accelerating training timelines, cutting technical support costs, and more.
• Maintaining an efficient, streamlined work environment. For the digital workplace to operate effectively, organizations need to close the gap between workers and their tools. Digital adoption platforms eliminate a great deal of wasted time and effort in the training process, helping to minimize that gap.
• Increasing the returns on their software investments. Since digital transformation efforts depend on realizing software value, it is critical to make full use of software. Otherwise, productivity will stagnate, software investments won’t deliver as expected, and digital transformation efforts will falter.
• Staying competitive in the fast-paced digital ecosystem. Ultimately, organizations must adopt and adapt in order to compete. Those that cannot will become obsolete and quickly fall behind in the race for digital maturity.

Today, the digital economy is continually evolving, which means that organizations must continually adapt.

Employees, likewise, must continually learn new skills in order to stay relevant.

Closing the digital skills gap is therefore a matter of survival, both for organizations as well as employees.

Best Practices, Strategies, Tactics, and Tips

Implementing DAPs in the workplace can, as we have seen, have a significant impact on organizational performance.

Though implementing these platforms is, in practice, not very challenging, it does require planning and effort.

Here are a few tips to help businesses successfully deploy and use their DAPs:

To get tangible results, fully commit to digital adoption, even if that commitment requires organizational change.

Digital adoption is a structured, systematic business process.

And, like any other business function, it requires dedication and effort.

Before embarking on any adoption initiative, therefore, organizations should:

• Ensure that they are fully committed 
• Have obtained buy-in and support from all stakeholders
• Make organizational changes when necessary

In short, to get results, an organization must be fully aligned and engaged. 

The best way to obtain that commitment is through a strong communication effort.

Earn support by:

• Selling organizations on the strategic benefits of digital adoption
• Communicating the personal benefits of adoption to employees
• Ensuring that all parties stay in sync throughout any organizational changes and adoption efforts

Change management can offer valuable insights and tools for those looking to obtain executive buy-in or employee support.

This discipline, after all, focuses heavily on organizational communication, individual change, and motivating employees.

Expand the focus beyond onboarding and training, to include digital adoption.

Earlier, we saw why organizations should look beyond onboarding and training.

The focus should instead be on the entire adoption process.

That process includes both onboarding and training.

It also, according to some experts, includes other business functions that can impact adoption efforts.

When viewed this way, the adoption process includes:

• Marketing and sales
• Support functions, such as technical support and customer support
• Back-office functions that impact the end user’s experience

As well as any other business area that can ultimately affect how users adopt a software product.

Focusing on digital adoption ensures that:

• Training managers and onboarding specialists don’t get “lost in the details” or lose focus of overarching strategic aims
• Different functions that support the adoption process work together and stay in sync
• The adoption process stays centered around the user experience

Training, in and of itself, tends to stay focused exclusively on training goals, such as user proficiency. 

And onboarding tends to emphasize the onboarding process.

In both instances, it can be easy to overlook the larger picture – the user’s journey.

For that reason, it is important to look not just at the immediate goals of training and onboarding, but at the complete user journey.

There is one effective tool that can help in this regard: the journey map.

Implement user journey maps, customer journey maps, or employee journey maps.

A journey map is a tool that maps out an individual’s experience as they progress along a pathway.

For instance:

• A user journey map follows a software user throughout the adoption process, including onboarding, training, ongoing use, and even departure
• A customer journey map, such as one that tracks the pathway to purchase, follows a customer through their evaluation of a problem, potential solutions, and through the point of purchase
• An employee journey map would follow employees through their entire experience with a company, from pre-hire activities, through recruitment, onboarding, training, and so forth

These maps, when used in conjunction with a DAP and a digital adoption strategy, can help businesses measure, improve, and stay focused on performance – which is usually the end goal of every training effort.

Link digital adoption efforts to organizational performance goals.

Digital adoption is becoming more and more influential each year in terms of how it affects organizational performance.

For enterprises, organizational performance is affected by:

• Employee skills
• Workforce productivity and performance levels
• The efficiency of the digital workplace

And for product developers, adoption affects organizational performance through:

• Customer acquisition metrics
• Users’ onboarding, training, and software experiences
• User engagement and retention

To name a few examples.

Because today’s workplace is continually evolving, digital adoption is taking center stage in many digital transformation efforts:

• Research firms such as Deloitte, for instance, have pointed out that digital adoption is a crucial stage in the digital transformation journey.
• Gartner has specifically highlighted the importance of DAPs – which it dubbed Digital Adoption Solutions – in accelerating employee performance.
• The World Economic Forum predicts that we are entering an era of “perpetual learning,” where continuous employee learning will become the norm

All of these factors make it clear that digital adoption should not be treated as an afterthought.

In fact, digital adoption can grant a competitive edge and fuel business growth … when DAPs are applied correctly.

Understand and optimize the user experience.

The user experience – whether those users are customers or employees – can have a dramatic impact on the outcomes of an adoption program.

Positive experiences can, for example:

• Improve users’ perception of a software platform
• Increase their motivation and engagement levels
• Lower frustration
• Boost output

And more.

To construct a good experience, it pays to look to the field of design.

User experience design, user-centered design, interaction design, and similar design disciplines all offer excellent insight into this arena.

Here are a few tips for optimizing the user experience with DAPs:

• Use DAPs to simplify the onboarding experience by offering product tours and walkthroughs.
• Analyze user behavior with software analytics, uncover sticking points, then use that information to enhance training efforts.
• Focus on making the target software platform even more usable and useful

Naturally, a DAP cannot make changes to the software that it is trying to teach. It cannot necessarily make that software more usable or useful, per se.

It can, however, transform the user experience by making a product more learnable.

When users have access to immediate, contextualized guidance, for example, their experience will improve dramatically.

They will:

• Learn more quickly
• Remember more easily
• Make fewer mistakes
• Better understand how to use a product
• Use more of that software’s functions

And so on.

For that reason, businesses should do all they can to optimize the users’ adoption experience … whether those users are in-house employees or customers.

Use DAPs to their fullest extent: explore different use cases.

DAPs can assist in a great many areas, including:

• Employee onboarding. Each time a new employee is hired, they must learn new software, rules, and procedures. DAPs can streamline this process by automating the digital training experience, helping them become productive from day one.
• Employee training and productivity. Over the life of their career, most employees will need to learn a wide variety of digital tools. This perpetual learning curve can result in many wasted hours … unless an organization trains employees effectively. DAPs are designed to minimize productivity losses while maximizing training efficiency.
• Customer onboarding. Customers who can’t understand a product will abandon it. With in-product walkthroughs and in-app tours, DAPs can decrease abandonment and boost longevity. 
• Employee self-service. Self-service functions ensures that they can access information on demand. As a result, they will be less likely to call on technical support. And they will also become more confident and more self-sufficient, which can increase their overall efficiency in the workplace.
• Customer self-support. Customers who call on technical support too often can quickly become frustrated. DAPs can reduce that frustration by acting as an automated technical support advisor.
• Promoting targeted features. DAPs can also promote targeted features. Whenever a program is upgraded and new features are added, for instance, users can be notified quickly and automatically. 
• Promoting other products or services. A DAP can also double up as a marketing tool, steering customers toward in-app offers. When combined with the other features covered above, this can add even more value to the product.

For more information on how DAPs work, it is a good idea to research these platforms in depth.

Our digital adoption blog contains a great many articles that cover DAPs, digital adoption, and how to use them.

Interested professionals can also visit the websites of industry-leading DAP providers, such as WalkMe.

Don’t set and forget – continually measure, learn, and improve.

Finally, it is important to remember an important lesson that holds true across every business process – manage, monitor, and improve.

This means:

• Regularly collecting data
• Learning from that data
• Changing adoption efforts as needed

Adaptation is the key to survival in business … especially in today’s dynamic and constantly-changing economy.

To keep up, businesses should not only implement digital adoption strategies and DAPs, they should also be ready to adapt their training efforts to the changing demands of the workforce and the marketplace.

The post DAP: The A-Z Guide for Digital Adoption and Transformation appeared first on Digital Adoption.

And it’s no wonder why…

Today, there are a number of trends that make it difficult to maintain a skilled workforce.

First and foremost, there is the fact that in-demand skills are continually changing.

This is all thanks to the digital revolution and digital disruption.

Before learning how to improve employee training, though, it will be useful to understand the problem that organizations face in today’s digital economy.

That context will help us understand which training method is most suitable for the digital era.

The Problem: Digital Disruption, Transformation, and Perpetual Change

Today, there are a number of global changes that are transforming the way we live and do business.

These trends are having a large impact on organizations and their ability to compete.

Let’s look at a few of these concepts in more detail:

Digital Disruption

Digital disruption occurs when an innovative new product enters the marketplace and fundamentally alters the way things are done.

These changes are considered “disruptive” because:

• They can affect and fundamentally alter business models and processes
• These changes often threaten the survival of existing organizations and businesses
• To stay competitive, organizations must make significant changes

Uber is a prime example of a disruptive business.

They used technology to disrupt the very way that taxi services operate. And, as a result, taxi services have been under fire on a global scale.

Many taxi services and governments responded by regulating or restricting ride sharing apps such as Uber.

However, this approach is doomed to fail – and no business should respond to disruption by resisting or ignoring it.

Instead, they should adapt and innovate as quickly as possible.

In other words, they should undergo digital transformation.

Digital Transformation

Digital transformation is the process of leveraging new technologies to transform:

• Existing business models
• Delivery systems
• The way organizations deliver value to their customers

And so forth.

True digital transformation is a large scale change that involves many pieces.

According to Deloitte, for instance, it is an organizational change that involves several steps, including:

• Developing a digital transformation strategy
• Adopting an agile mindset
• Evolving the business model
• Digital adoption
• Enhancing digital capabilities
• Revising the operating model
• Enabling customer success
• Fundamentally changes to people, process, and technology

In other words, digital transformation should not be just a buzz word – it should be a concrete, step-by-step organizational transformation.

However, there is one thing that organizations should realize about change in today’s marketplace.

Change is never-ending…

Perpetual Change

The digital revolution may come to an end some day, but so far the end is not in sight.

This means that organizations must be prepared for perpetual organizational change.

Organizations, in other words, must adopt new mindsets and strategies in order to stay competitive and relevant.

For instance:

• Continual organizational change is becoming the norm
• Businesses must become innovative and forward-thinking
• The more agile and adaptable a business is, the more quickly it will be able to evolve
• To stay relevant, the workforce must also adapt

Perpetual change, in other words, has resulted in another major trend…

Perpetual Learning

Continual transformation requires that organizations continually adopt new technology, new business processes, and new workflows.

This means that employees must continually learn new things.

And it means that organizations must establish effective training systems to teach them.

The quality of that training will determine many things, including:

• The workforce’s ability to adapt to new changes
• How well employees can learn new software
• Employees’ productivity and performance

Training quality, in other words, plays a critical role in workforce productivity, organizational performance, and organizational competitiveness.

To stay relevant in the digital age, therefore, organizations must adopt training solutions that are effective and cost-efficient.

One Solution: Improve Employee Training with Digital Adoption Platforms (DAPs)

Digital adoption platforms (DAPs) are specifically built to facilitate digital transformation.

These automated training solutions help organizations stay competitive and productive, even in today’s fast-paced business ecosystem.

There are several benefits to implementing a DAP in the workplace, such as:

• Streamlined employee onboarding, user onboarding, and product onboarding
• Product training that is more efficient and effective
• A better user experience, which improves engagement while decreasing frustration levels
• Lower technical support costs
• A more productive workforce

DAPs are built around a core set of training features, including:

• Contextualized, in-app assistance that offers guidance in the moment of need
• Step-by-step walkthroughs and tutorials that train new users automatically, without the need of human intervention
• Software analytics that offer insight into user behavior and training needs
• Task automation that can improve business process performance, while freeing up users’ time for more useful activities

These features, combined into a single platform, are a powerful solution to the problems and trends presented earlier.

Effective use of DAPs can help organizations improve employee training, maintain a skilled workforce, and stay competitive in the digital age.

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