Feature
I’m not a digital work expert. But in October, 2022 I started working here, an all-remote company, as an editorial producer. That kicked off a crash course learning our entire suite of digital tools. Now they’re staples of my day-to-day work, but at the start the digital litany was overwhelming.
Luckily, digital workplace leaders here were tactful and mindful as they initiated training. Although it was daunting to hear I had to quickly master a list of programs I’d never even heard of, after a few short weeks I felt confident in my ability to navigate these programs and knew who to reach out to for help.
I’m certainly not alone. With the rise of remote work over the past three years, a huge number of workplaces have had to shift how they use and train on digital tools Unfortunately — but maybe not surprisingly — many corporations fail to provide new employees with the proper knowledge or training.
Overcoming Current Challenges
Dante Ragazzo, senior digital workplace director at Tapestry, said informing employees about what training is available is the first big challenge to overcome. Whether you’re replacing an already popular tool or introducing a new feature, employees need to know both why and how new tools, features, or platforms are needed.
“If you’re replacing an existing tool, it’s critical employees understand not only what changes to expect, but also an honest reason for the change,” Ragazzo said. “Ideally, you’re improving their [work] lives, and therefore you have all sorts of benefits to tout as a reason they should use it.”
Related: Dante Ragazzo — How to Reduce Friction in the Digital Workplace
Leaders can overcome these challenges by implementing a “champions” strategy, Ragazzo suggested. Giving employees a sense of ownership and pride in the tool can motivate them to become advocates for change and make them feel more involved and in touch with an otherwise foreign program.Similarly, since new employees are often anxious about navigating a new workspace, orientation can be a prime opportunity to reach them early. Helping employees feel confident with a tool that was foreign to them only a short time ago boosts morale, and as a result, improves work performance.
But there’s also such a thing as too much information, said Charles Stewart, senior manager of employee experience products at Autodesk. Information overload is a real challenge for learning and development leaders. New hires are often inundated with a firehose of information being shot at them from all sides, so the last thing they need is a list of digital tools with functions that may or may not be relevant. Saying “here’s another thing to learn!” and piling one more task on an employee’s to-do list makes them automatically dismiss the tools being shown.
If your company is unclear about which information is important or relevant to employees, don’t show them every single feature up front. This can lead to information overload, and as a result, a sense of dissonance and fragmentation. To curb this, Stewart suggested evaluating tools by their quality and findability. Making sure employees only interact with tools in their regular rotation will declutter the onboarding experience. New folks don’t need to know about every single feature available — especially if they’ll never be using them all.
Delivering Training
When it comes to digital tool training, Stewart stressed the importance of listening to employees and using a customer-centric approach.
“Think of employees as customers,” Stewart said. “In a sense, good employee experience is a kind of product, with the employees as the customer and your organization as the provider. If you deliver better EX, employees will stay and feel more connected to the company.”
As Stewart suggested, using a product management strategy forces L&D leaders to base their implementation of digital tools around the employee, not the company. That way, they can see what the employee is looking for in terms of connectivity, then make adjustments to the tools to make them easier to navigate for employees instead of “fixing” how an employee learns to use them.
When it comes to any form of training, it’s important to remember every employee learns differently. Some are tactile, others are visual but whatever the case, Stewart warned against assuming one form of training will be equally effective for everyone. Leaders should try meeting individuals’ needs by offering diverse training programs, he recommended. Record a video for a visual learner, troubleshoot live with someone that needs a hands-on approach or recommend an instructional article for those who prefer to fly solo.
“Ask: how is this tool going to enable/support the employee?,” Stewart said. “Leaders should make every employee’s experience feel unique to help them connect with their team and place enablement at the center. Don’t make the employee an afterthought.”
Related Article: Navigating the 9 States of Mind During Digital Transformation
Proficiency Is Key
Ideally, a successful training program, particularly for digital workplaces, relies on proficiency. The idea of ‘training’ can be reductive in the sense that its goal is to show employees how to use a specific tool or feature — regardless of whether or not they retain the information. Instead of simply showing employees what a tool can do, Ragazzo’s team is instead honing in on perfecting tool proficiency.
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“We’ve seen a huge uptake in some tools, like Chat in Teams, but less adoption of broader capabilities like co-authoring,” Ragazzo said. “It’s ironic, because co-authoring is a most sought-after capability, but employees still struggle to adopt it. They tell us they’re confused as to when to use OneDrive versus Teams and they tend to revert back to old but reliable habits, like attaching actual files, rather than sharing links to cloud-based files. That’s why we’re focusing on proficiency now more than ‘training.’”
Understanding what digital assets you’ll be needing on the day-to-day helps new hires quickly settle into their role, and later, act as mentors for other trainees down the line.
