Introducing digital transformation and new software in the workplace can be daunting for both businesses and employees alike. While company leads may know that digital transformation is key for cost cutting and meeting sustainability goals, implementing a change into the company workflow may bring up more challenges.

However, the adoption of digital transformation has its benefits, with employees becoming more productive with the support of the latest software streamlining tasks. The key to successfully introducing a digital adoption platform lies in finding solutions to the challenges in order to reap the benefits.

What is a digital adoption platform?

Firstly, let’s answer the most important question: What is a digital adoption platform? A digital adoption platform (DAP) is software that is built on top of another software product, app, or website to assist users in gaining competency. The software guides users through important activities and provides contextual information as they traverse unfamiliar platforms and programs.

End-users come first as a DAP assists employees in getting the most out of other software and applications that they use for work. This is accomplished through streamlining tasks, minimizing friction from associated support, and tracking adoption across a software suite. Its overall goal is to make software easier to use and help employees reach their goals with step-by-step guidance for more complex tasks while also incorporating useful knowledge content.

What are the challenges of a DAP?

Once you’ve conquered the hurdles of digital transformation, it can radically shift how you do things. However, you must remember that simply showing employees your new tools is insufficient. Overcoming digital transformation challenges will help you unleash the full potential of your new tool – Consider assisting your employees in adopting the most recent digital technology, methods, and workflow with a fresh mentality in order to make the most of this technology.

Let’s break down a few challenges you might face when attempting to implement a digital adoption platform:

• Remote working – The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted offices and began a shift towards a higher percentage of remote or hybrid working. Working from home is expected to continue to be a major, if not permanent, element of workplaces for years to come. As a result of this, remote workers invariably have less direct access to support and assistance. Although tech can be utilized to boost performance even among remote workers, employees will continue to struggle to use this tech competently when working from home unless organizations provide additional support.
• Reluctance – Not everyone easily embraces change, and although IT platforms are more user-friendly than ever that does not imply that everyone will begin using them right away. Some employees may be reluctant to change, especially older employees who aren’t as used to the fast-paced advancement of tech in the workplace. Individuals might prefer to use their old methods rather than adapt to the new surroundings if they are not given the necessary assistance and encouragement.
• Training – It’s nothing new that different employees have different needs and learn differently. This can be an issue as a lot of the time employees are told that they must begin using the new platform without any explanation or assistance. A common pattern is for employees to be given an initial training session, which is not tailored to suit all, and this leads to an initial boom of utilization. However, this is followed by a slow drop in adoption due to a lack of long-term support and lack of personalization during the initial training sessions. Problems will begin to rear their heads when employees begin falling behind in their tasks.
• Monitoring – Only when you’ve observed, measured, and confirmed that employees are using the various tools as intended can you call digital adoption a success. Once you have the necessary metrics, it is simple to see the areas for improvement, where users are getting stuck, falling off course, or missing out on relevant guidance.

The bottom line: Why adopt a DAP?

DAP’s offer a variety of benefits including supporting the best workplace practices, increasing employee productivity, and providing advanced analytics which helps improve customer experience with your company. DAP strategies also empower your business, not just your employees, by allowing your business to thrive in the rapidly evolving digital world.

With a DAP, companies can handle the onboarding process and training, allowing new hires to hit the ground running much sooner. A strong digital adoption platform provides simplified experiences as well as intuitive and user-friendly interfaces. Good adoption of these platforms can assist in incorporating employee feedback, resulting in overall higher job satisfaction and let companies know that their employees are retaining the best use of this software.

With recent phenomenons such as “meeting culture”, causing a decline in employee productivity, a digital adoption platform is critical to helping businesses get the most out of the apps their employees utilize as proficient and effective software use becomes increasingly necessary to enhance employee productivity and growth.