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April 25, 2018

How to get your workforce on board with going mobile

Getting employees to adopt new tech can be a challenge. Here are three things for managers to think about to break through the resistance to change.

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Remaining relevant in an increasingly digital world means catering to the core needs of your workforce. Leading organizations understand that engaging an increasingly remote and mobile-savvy workforce means considering how important work-life tasks are experienced on a mobile device.

From an employee experience perspective, empowering employees with mobile human capital management software with features that help organize their daily lives – such as managing their work schedules and seeing payroll information – has become essential.

It sounds simple in theory, but in practice, getting employees on board with new tools and technology, like a mobile app, can be a challenge.

But almost everyone’s on mobile, you might say, so what’s the problem? While it’s true that just over one in 10 American adults are “smartphone-only” internet users (meaning they own a smartphone, but do not have traditional home broadband service), getting your employees to adopt new technology in the work environment can be a change management issue.

Whether employees are resistant to change because they’re set in a routine, or you’re dealing with a multi-generational workforce, it’s the job of managers and leaders to get employees on board. Here are three ways to do that.

Communicate the “why” clearly

Often resistance to change occurs because employees dread the implications – they’re not clear on what the outcome will be, so they’d rather not do it. That’s why it’s critical to communicate with your employees about why you’re adopting mobile.

What’s the vision? What are the benefits, from an economic, time efficiency and productivity standpoint? How does mobile HCM access make your employees’ work lives better?

Think about it in terms of how employees may define a quality employee experience. It could be the quality of interactions they have with the business, or perhaps the quality of the work environment. Employers should think of “quality” as satisfying the needs of the employee so they can remain productive. As such, communicate the productivity benefits to your people.

For example, when employees are on the job and receive timely push notifications about a schedule change or when their manager has sent them a note, remaining productive is easy. When they can access an up-to-date schedule on their phones while also viewing who they are working with, they can make important decisions about upcoming tasks, such as trading shifts.

These quick and efficient interactions not only satisfy the expectations for a younger, tech-oriented workforce, but more broadly empower your people.

Reinforce the benefits and celebrate that the days when a schedule had to be handwritten and pinned to a bulletin board in the employee lounge are long gone.

Learn more about how Dayforce Mobile gives you time back in your day

Include them in the development process

One of the best ways to reduce the barrier of adoption of an enterprise mobile app is to encourage employees to become partners in the development process. As an example, at Ceridian, we involve our clients in new feature usability studies during the early phases of product development. By integrating direct client feedback into our process, users feel a sense of ownership and pride as they personally validate the look and feel of the features they will eventually use on a day-to-day basis.

Establish a continuous feedback loop, so that if an employee has an idea about a new feature or adjustment to an existing one, they feel that that their employers are invested in bettering their professional experience. A strong sense of mutual collaboration will go a long way in easing the transition to widespread mobile app adoption.

Connect with your employees on their terms

Your employees are checking their phones over 100 times per day. Therefore, it is important to recognize how and where they expect to receive information. By rolling out secure messaging functionality on a mobile app, employees will always remain informed about important company information that impacts their daily lives. Coupled with a push notification, so they do not need to remain logged in to the app to be quickly notified of new information, the experience becomes seamless and natural.

Mobile access to key work-life functions is no longer a “nice to have”— it is the expectation. By clearly communicating the reasons you’re deploying a mobile strategy, not only will your organization benefit from time and cost savings, you will gain the trust of your workforce and empower them to perform at their highest level.

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