Technology is often a major investment for your workplace. You may have spent considerable time researching available solutions and choosing the technology option that best fit your unique needs and budget. Unfortunately, not every technology investment pays off. There are several reasons your technology investment might not be working as well as you had hoped.
1. Your Team isn’t Informed
Your team can’t adopt technology that no one knows about. Your team needs to know about all the features offered by your product, what it can do, and what it integrates with so that they can use it effectively for their daily tasks. For example, if your team doesn’t know that your inventory solution can help with demand forecasting or replenishment, they may not use it for that purpose, which means that you aren’t getting the full benefit out of that technology. Many employers fail to provide their teams with the information they need about how to get the most out of a new technology product, which can leave those managers wondering, in the future, why a new technology solution isn’t working for them.
2. Poor Training
Training can have a huge impact on the adoption of new technology. Some employees will take longer to figure out how to use that technology than others. Unfortunately, many organizations simply do not provide that training to their full teams. As a result, team members may have to figure out how to adopt that technology on their own. Without support from within the organization, they may simply choose to return to their old technology solution, which may ultimately lead to the failure of the new system.
Training can take multiple forms. Remote training, for example, can provide a beneficial solution for many new technology adoption processes, especially if you do not have access to on-site options. However, old-fashioned on-site training can make a huge difference in the trainer’s ability to connect with the employees who are using the product, identify any problems they might be having with the training or adoption, and guide them through that process.
3. Inadequate Support
When using new technology, the members of your team need a strong support infrastructure to figure out how to use those products effectively. That may mean several things.
- Connecting with an organization that is willing to provide that support for your team as you adapt to the new solution, including offering on-demand support services as team members are trying to figure out how to make the most of a new platform.
- Giving in-depth training to management team members or specific members of the organization so that they can, in turn, provide that support to their teammates.
- Offering time for team members to adapt to and start using the new technology solution. Inadequate time to adjust can make the solution more frustrating for users, which may make them more likely to turn back to their former solutions.
Support is a critical ingredient to success in the new technology implementation plan. Without that support, you may find that your team members simply cannot adapt to the new technology effectively, which may often lead to failure to fully adopt it or even failure to use it at all.
4. Poor Selection
Ideally, before you adopt a new technology solution, you will do your research to make sure that the solution fits your needs. Unfortunately, all too often, there is a breakdown between the actual needs of the organization and the technology you have chosen. Sometimes, upper-level management will approve a solution based on its cost, rather than based on whether it has the features that the organization needs. In other cases, the team selecting the new technology solution will consider the needs of one department or group but may not fully consider the needs of everyone who will need to use that product or solution on a regular basis. By ensuring that the product has all the features and integrations you actually need, you can create a much smoother adoption process and increase the odds that your employees will actually use that new solution.
5. Lack of Understanding
Many people are naturally resistant to change. Older workers, in particular, may struggle to understand why you want them to adapt to a new technology solution. They may feel that the old one is working “just fine,” or, in many cases, have a hard time learning how to use the new platform or solution. Workers need to understand several key things to help them get on board with the new technology adoption.
First, they need to understand the goal of the new technology. In many cases, that may mean detailing why a specific technology solution was chosen and what benefits it will offer to the business, including why the team selected that specific solution. Employers may even need to have a conversation with their employees about why they chose to step away from their former solution.
Next, employees need to have a solid understanding of how a new product benefit them, specifically. Often, employees will take time to get on board with even a technology solution designed to save their time or make their lives easier. By laying out what the product can accomplish for those employees, specifically, many employers find that they are better positioned to get employees to adopt those new technologies and take advantage of them.
The Penalties of Failing to Adopt New Technology
When employees don’t adopt new technology in a timely manner, it causes three key problems.
Lost Time
Often, you have invested significant time in training and installing new technology. Unfortunately, if employees fail to use that technology, it means that the time needed to adopt it in the first place was likely wasted.
Lost Productivity
New technology is, in many cases, chosen specifically to improve overall productivity and functionality. Employees who adopt those new solutions often note significantly increased overall productivity. Unfortunately, failure to adopt those technologies can slow them down, dropping their overall performance.
Returning to Old Processes
When a program or platform doesn’t work, employees often return to old processes. They may end up doing things the way they always did in the past, even though those solutions are no longer viable for the business. That return to old processes may mean that the team must start over at ground zero, which may further interfere with long-term productivity and lead to increased costs as the team looks for a new solution.
At Stock IQ, we help your team with the process of adopting our new technology, including providing the training and support your team needs to get started. Contact us today to learn more about our inventory management solutions and how they can benefit your brand–and how we can help you get started using them.
