Securing User Adoption

- HR Software
- Payroll Software
- Recruitment Software
- Online Payslips
- HR Services
- HR Systems
- HR Outsourcing
- HR Consultants
- Absence Management
- Personnel Software
One of the most common causes of failed IT implementations – across the whole IT sector, not just in HR – is lack of buy-in from stakeholders, whether senior executives or line managers and employees. This is a particular risk for self-service, where the whole rationale behind implementation is to reach out beyond the HR function and encourage participation at every level of the organisation.
There are a number of well-established techniques to encourage adoption, including:
- Involving representatives from relevant parts of the organisation. Self-service projects shouldn’t get bogged down in lengthy consultations, but building an inclusive steering committee from the design phase onwards helps broaden buy-in and gives a voice to all constituencies
- Harnessing critical users and enthusiasts at the start of the project and letting them shape the project. These “power users” play a big role in evangelising the concept and assisting in the physical rollout
- Focusing on the people who matter most in a change management process, not those with the loudest voices. Michael Hammer, the management consultant most famous for developing the concept of business re-engineering, argues that in any change management project 20 per cent of people will be enthusiastic, 20 per cent will fight it and 60 per cent will be undecided. Most companies focus on the 20 per cent who resist it – but the battle is really won among the 60 per cent who can be swayed either way
- Carrying out usability testing
- Generating quick wins that bring tangible benefits to end-users and senior management as well as the HR or finance department.
- Providing online payslips and encouraging employees to post emergency contact information online are both effective ways of encouraging adoption
The order in which self-service applications are implemented can also be important. Allowing employees to change their name and address is relatively simple, but it’s also relatively low-value, since employees move house so infrequently. Distributing payslips online, by contrast, is a relatively simple one-way transmission process, yet it has tangible benefits all round.
Employees usually receive their pay information earlier, which allows errors to be corrected sooner (something that’s also important to Finance). From the organisation’s perspective, online payslips reduce print and distribution costs and are an effective means of encouraging employees to use the self-service systems.
It’s also important to bear in mind that different employees have different priorities. Speed and process efficiency will appeal to some, particularly in areas such as faster error correction in payroll or quicker approval of training course enrolment, while others will appreciate 24×7 access to their compensation history or benefits so they can study their options from home. These different drivers need to be aggregated and weighted. Organisations that conduct extensive surveys of their workforce prior to rollout are often surprised by the findings, so this kind of preparation may deliver results in the long-term.
Finally, while these issues are important in securing buy-in, organisations should also prepare themselves for the opposite reaction – overwhelming enthusiasm. Many self-service adopters have found that once employees and line managers begin to see tangible benefits in one area, demand for new services rapidly escalates faster than they can be delivered.
Computers In Personnel Ltd
28-30 Chapel St
Marlow, SL7 1DD
0870 366 2345




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