Three Common Mistakes with Technology Adoption

Adoption programs drive user behavior, working methods, and general work habits with technology. When employees grow their skills, change how they work, and get the most out of the technology, this creates efficiencies and drives the value of the tools and platform. Deeply embedded adoption is crucial to all workplaces and can result from many factors across platform configuration, learning, communication, and support. These factors depend on organization strategy, planning, and delivery, all of which share common mistakes, which are explored below.

Mistake #1: Expecting Employees to Own Their Learning Journey

More and more organizations have been expecting staff to complete self-paced learning in a Learning Management System, by accessing content in an intranet/online portal, or even just learning from each other and trying to work things out. Workplaces have moved from a traditional model of 'teaching' or 'training', to driving ‘self-educators.’ This is seen through organizations providing staff access to solutions like LinkedIn Learning, or even links to free content on YouTube, and expecting them to view and learn in their own time. There are issues with both approaches.

We put unrealistic expectations on employees

Expecting people to watch content, absorb the information, develop skills on their own, and apply learnings to how they use technology requires people to be very self-directed with their learning journey and grow their own digital literacy. To do so, they need to own their learning journey, and with this, seek out content, review the information, consume it, and apply the learning to build skills. I personally see two main issues here. Firstly, this relies heavily on self-motivation for the time and effort of an individual, which may not be at optimal levels to drive follow-through. Secondly, problems with the content.

Employees don’t know if online content is accurate

When it comes to people, they don't always know what they don't know. Even if they do recognize a gap in knowledge or skills, they may not source the right content to grow digital skills. Also, research over decades has taught us much about the habits of humans. We tend to stick to what is comfortable, easy, and we hesitate to grow. Growing requires the discomfort of the different or new thing, which is hard. We tend to avoid hard, new, and awkward things. We don't naturally try new skills and easily adopt them.

The internet is flooded with out-of-date content

When it comes to the content itself, there is so much information online, and much of it is very quickly out of date. For Microsoft 365, it is also often very generic and not aligned with the configuration of an organization’s tenant. Many people would not be equipped to seek out the most accurate free content. Finding videos or information online for Microsoft tools and features that are best suited to their workplace can be harder than you think. The searching for, and finding the most accurate, learning for the self-educator is a complex journey, and we don't know what staff are consuming solo, if at all.

Employee Digital Literacy often stagnates

When it comes to Microsoft 365, there are many areas that require ongoing growth in digital skills to increase digital literacy.

Take Teams meetings, for example. Across each year, meeting features are enhanced and extended. We can move through our daily work without changing how we run online meetings. At a basic level, we book, join, talk, and eventually end a meeting. Many people don't extend beyond basic skills and probably don't see a need to learn anything further, nor are they motivated to try, nor do they know how big the gap is in their knowledge of meeting features.

Another example, ‘posts’ in Microsoft Teams. Posts have improvements, new features, and ways to benefit from adapting small changes in use. Take a person who posts the same message in different channels. Some people 'copy and paste' the same text to then post into a different place. Some don't know how to multi-channel post, which can same time and be easier. How would you know if people lack this skill? How would they know it could be better?

Something similar could be said for Microsoft Teams chat - when to try new features or know more about what exists. With chat, people might see a button move, change, or disappear. For example, the paperclip for attaching a document turned into a plus symbol in chat and channels. Even if people noticed this change, they may have quickly adapted and continue to use the plus symbol for attaching documents, oblivious or unsure about the variety of things now possible with this symbol/ button. People may not look at what is in there or learn more about it, just work out how to do their known habit.

You can hopefully see how there can be challenges to drive an increase in the digital literacy and ways of working across an organization when people are left to their own experience and expected as self-educators to grow skills and enhance their use of technology. Without a deep awareness of how people work or using measurement to be on top of the ways of working, an organization can lose control over the broad skills and behaviors of staff with the technology.

Mistake #2: Learning being formal, structured, and general

In the past, the roll-out of technology was usually accompanied by a launch program with communication and learning for staff. While the gradual move to staff as self-educators is problematic, it does not mean that the best solution is formal, structured, mandatory training sessions for staff across an organization. While this has a place, research for many years has explored how to innovate learning programs to more successfully drive adoption of technology and improve digital literacy.

Blended learning drives greater success

We have known for a while that adults in the modern workplace benefit greatly from blended learning programs that meet diverse learner needs by accommodating differing learning styles and modalities. Blended learning has been utilized in many adult learning and organizational contexts, with the staff preferring a blended approach over a single delivery mode, such as online or face-to-face classes. Staff like the flexibility, without sacrificing face-to-face interaction, especially for employees who have many competing responsibilities and cannot always be in the optimal state for learning in a one-off (or long-winded) training session.

Learning is more successful when staff can attend, discuss, understand, and apply over time. And even more so when there is the opportunity for sharing and feedback as a group.

Although the many benefits of Blended Learning are well documented in literature (Blended Learning: Balancing the Best of Both Worlds for Adult Learners - Kelly McKenna, Kalpana Gupta, Leann Kaiser, Tobin Lopes, Jill Zarestky, 2020 (sagepub.com), simply offering a blended approach or course is not enough to ensure success. Many components require careful consideration and planning to effectively achieve the desired workplace outcomes and meet learner needs.

How traditional training fails employees

Researchers have also explored the idea that traditional workplace training is not enough for job readiness or enhancing ways of working. There needs to be a combination of more applied content that is relevant to the workplace. Employees need to not just attend a structured training session or view online content, but engage in a considerable amount of meaningful tasks applying it in their daily work (Sage Reference - The SAGE Handbook of Workplace Learning - Theories of Workplace Learning (sagepub.com)). It has been widely known that on-the-job learning is stronger than reading course content. The notion of 'informal learning' and also 'incidental learning' drives high adoption and success in workplace change with core to the experience being opportunity for discussion, reflection, and a feedback loop (Theory and Practice of Informal Learning in the Knowledge Era - Victoria J. Marsick, Marie Volpe, Karen E. Watkins, 1999 (sagepub.com)).

Learning needs to be reactive and innovative

Developing workplace learning in this current time is complex and at times very reactive. Those who build the content need to expand their skillset and build more innovative programs. While technology like Microsoft 365 creates a reactive situation, we need to get better at anticipating needs and be more aware of where problems arise with modern work, and relate learning programs to aim for greater impact. The constant new features in technology make it impossible for custom content to remain sustainable.

Newer technology with advances like AI is fast-paced and wreaks havoc on learning design. With Copilot, for example, an organization realistically needs to not provide access until there is deep thought and time to be proactive through developing use cases and scenarios. The challenge is that staff want the new thing and push for more. With Microsoft Teams, many organizations didn't bother with detailed personas or learning scenarios. They moved forward rapidly with assumptions (a lot obviously reactive due to the pandemic). Having a detailed review from the outset with use cases and personas relevant to an organization and the roles of employees will establish a baseline approach not only for clarity in learning and use, but also a reference for ongoing analysis and review to monitor success.

Microsoft Loop is now available in most tenants and is available for people to try. Many places fail to work out the details and potential uses or benefits. It's something staff can try out and run with again. I’ve experienced people think it's a comparison to OneNote, which isn't the case. It is more interactive and very different.

Learning needs to align better with tenant configuration and user needs

With all of this, an organization needs to stay on top of what is available in the tenant, what can be controlled and 'turned off' until ready, with adequate planning and clarity on use or value, such as the expensive Copilot licenses. Building learning for these features or tools needs a more modern and innovative approach with frameworks like design thinking and even using tools like a 'Theory of Change' model to solve problems through learning that is tailored to an organization rather than generic content.

Learning is a continual process, lasting across years through an organization. Learning and work-related activities cannot be viewed as separate. In many situations, they are the same. We cannot rely on old-school formal training programs or self-directed learning for deep adoption. We need specific and innovative approaches that engage, motivate, and help staff apply to their work and build ongoing improvements. Along with this, we need to be in control of what is in the platform to use, and tightly measure to have a strong handle on the ways of working across an organization.

Mistake #3: Not utilizing the power of the collective or network

Finally, many organizations don't leverage enough of the power of the collective. The people.

We have known for a while the benefits of the social element of learning. However, I don't feel this is deeply understood and utilized.

Building a training session about some key features in Microsoft 365 may feel clear-cut. It is created, delivered, and a time-boxed task to tick off. What is much more complicated is the perspective of an organization as a network of people who can connect, discuss, share, and collaborate to drive a learning experience for many and help transform the workplace.

Learning occurs at both the individual and group levels

Crucial to learning programs, as described in research over the last decade, are elements of socio-cultural theory, where it is important to cover both elements of individual and group learning. The collective learning will help drive the goals and support further growth in each individual's learning. We can use these ideas when designing and driving workplace transformation. Each person learns skills and has their own level of digital literacy, but they are also impacted by the group or department. Our learning impacts each other and is relevant at the individual and group levels. To do this well, we cannot utilize general content or data. In general, accessing the Microsoft admin platform metrics doesn’t give us data specific enough to individual staff or an organization's own goals, and won’t tell the right story. Microsoft platform metrics are an idea or concept, created to be useful and provide general insights, but don’t provide deep, specific data to truly monitor and transform an organization's technology usage. 

It has already been discussed above how more successful learning programs involve a blended approach, with meaningful ways to try skills and apply learning to daily work. With this, organizational learning and change also benefit from a broader context, with activities that provide general skills, along with group activities allowing learners to apply to their job and test with role play and feedback. This utilizes the individual learning experience and then the collective to grow together and drive greater adoption and change.

Consider Microsoft Teams meetings. The technology is available and has many features, with staff across an organization having a huge variation in use and capability of features. There isn't a need for deep, formal, detailed training sessions. We run meetings many times a week, and can, over time, shift how we meet online. The collective group within a department or organization can define and refine the meeting experience, one meeting at a time. Working together is more effective than any individual watching a video and considering trying a skill. An organization can help communicate ideas, motivate meetings to run more effectively, and measure usage to monitor change.

Similar can be said for workplace collaboration, task tracking, data manipulation, or planning. All of these areas have tools in the Microsoft platform to drive effective ways of working. They all shift and change, and require ongoing growth of skills, and employees to remain adaptive. Measuring how people are working, files created or shared, plans or Lists created, and how they are using applications, will help analyze and assess if the individuals and the collective are moving forward and growing with the digital world.

Driving the group journey embeds ways of working

Learning is about behavior change, and over time, transformation can occur when a large group changes and shifts together. The analysis across the platform can help to more deeply observe that behavior through the use of applications and features. Workplace learning isn't about watching content or attending a session, and then doing a quiz. A high score of one person on a quiz doesn't change the broader team. People can have an internal understanding of information, but how will that translate to observable behavior, work habits, and use of technology?

Understanding and incorporating evidence-based approaches will drive long-term success

Microsoft 365 is ever evolving and requires organizations to be proactive and adaptive. Our use and learning needs to grow over time, with employees supporting each other through close colleagues and the power of the broader network. We need to leverage each other to connect new ideas to what we already know and deepen our understanding to grow skills. It's unrealistic to expect people to be independent self-educators who know what has changed and search for the content to absorb and build into their workplace toolbelt. If you have this expectation, you'll likely be disappointed by the inevitable failure of your users to adopt and derive value from your constantly evolving M365 tech stack.