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Are Your Employees Sabotaging New Technology?
A guide for helping staff embrace,
not forsake, technological change
BY FRED ODE
Have you heard the one
about the computer user
who calls tech support for
help with a new software program? When the
support technician asks, “Are you
running that program under
Windows?,” the user responds, “No,
but I could move it over to that side of
the room.”
Funny? Yes…unless that happens
to be one of your employees!
New technological initiatives are
one of the most important ways for
construction and design companies
to renew themselves and compete
in today’s fast-paced markets. However,
many of these investments
simply don’t live up to the great expectations
that we have for them.
There could be many reasons for
this, but here we’ll address the
widespread problem of employee
misuse and sabotage.
Am I suggesting that your staff
would actually blow up their hard
drives… or shred their new software?
Not at all. But, like it or not, your employee–
the end user of your new
technology–could be the person who
stands between the success or failure
of a major company investment.
You’ve probably seen it happen
before. Top management makes the
thoughtful and painstaking decision
to purchase a new technology product
that shows genuine promise for
the company. Unfortunately, the transition
process or complete integration
of the new technology comes to a
screeching halt because the end
user/users cannot or will not adapt to
the changes that result. Generally,
there are three reasons why this will
happen.
The employee fights the learning
process.
You may have the brightest,
most competent staff member on
board, but if a person is too set in
their ways, and uncomfortable with
change of any kind, than you may
have better luck turning water into
wine than relying on this individual to
enthusiastically embrace your new
technology. The best way to avoid
bad attitudes is to include employees
in the decision-making process.
According to adult learning theory,
adults will commit to learning when
the goals and objectives are considered
realistic and important to them.
A person who understands how the
new technology will benefit the company
overall, and relates to his/her
day-to-day activities, will be less
resistant to change.
The employee lacks specific skills.
It’s
unfair to ask an employee with no
skills or training in a specific area to
tackle new technology that builds
upon those skills. For example, your
company currently employs several
high school grads to perform basic
bookkeeping tasks using a generic
software package. Your decision to
upgrade to a construction-specific accounting system would be better
utilized by an employee with
accounting experience. The user
needs to understand not just the
individual tasks to be performed, but
how the system can be used to
manage and analyze all financial
data. Likewise, the end user of a
powerful new estimating software
package should be person within
the company who has a background
in job cost estimating.
The employee has not been given adequate
training.
Clearly, this is not the
fault of the employee, and it is probably
the major cause of painful,
chaotic transitions when introducing
new technology. The good news is
that it is entirely within your control
to give your staff what they need,
namely, proper training,
support…and time.
What do I mean by proper training?
Let me answer that question
with a question. Did you know that
adults have a much shorter attention
span and a lower ability to learn
new concepts than our school-age
children? Our hectic, multi-tasking
work environment has robbed us of
the ability to focus and learn more
than one or two concepts at a time.
So forget about throwing your employees
into an all-day seminar and
expecting them to master their new
software or system. Instead, spread
out the training as much as you
can, and include lots of hands-on
practical exercises. The time spent
in up-front training is well worth the
investment and could prevent costly
downtime in the future.
Of course, product training and
support should be among your
greatest concerns when selecting
new technology. Ask for client referrals
and talk to the end users regarding
how they were trained and
the availability of “live” support people.
If your employee is paralyzed
with a new technology problem and
spends the entire day on hold with a
computer-voice messaging “help
desk,” I’d say productivity has definitely
suffered, not improved, with
your new product.
To summarize, the best ways to
have your employees embrace new
technology initiatives are to 1) include
the end-users in the decision
making process; 2) make sure that
you have hired the best people
(meaning aptitude and attitude) to
handle the daily operations, and 3)
provide employees with comprehensive
training and support as well as a
reasonable timetable for making
major changes.
Fred Ode is the founder and chairman/CEO of Foundation
Software, Inc. Ode developed a construction-specific
accounting software, Foundation for Windows,
that suits a range of trades. For more information, visit
www.foundationsoft.com or call 800-246-0800.
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