How Can Leaders Best Introduce New Tech to Employees?

Introducing new tech can cause stress for some employees who feel unsure about the unknown, or cause indifference for other employees who don’t expect the tech to be around very long. During implementation, it’s crucial that leaders show how the tech will make jobs easier and boost business to ease worries and get everyone on board. When introducing new tech is inevitable, here is what leaders can do to lessen worry for employees.

Tech development and deployment is happening all around us. Still, it’s hard to know how to encourage your employees to feel comfortable with new innovations in the workplace.

Take ChatGPT, for instance. While 68% of workers admit to dabbling with the Open AI product without their employers’ knowledge, they aren’t necessarily using it efficiently or safely. Look what happened at Samsung when team members leaked secret codes via their ChatGPT forays; their actions weren’t deliberately malicious, but they still led to serious fallout.

The truth is that technology will continue evolving; some of your team members will take to it quickly and others will play ostrich and put their heads in the proverbial sand. Rather than allowing tech to just “happen to you,” you need to take control of its impact. This ownership is what will allow you to help your people develop a healthy and productive relationship with any new and emerging tech you decide to try.

It isn’t always easy; people can be quite reluctant when it comes to embracing anything novel. Some of your employees may even be fearful that new tech could eventually make their positions obsolete. Others may not see why they should bother learning something new, assuming that some tech will go by the wayside and be replaced as fast as they can learn it.

The following strategies will help you guide everyone on your team toward specific types of tech solutions that are most apt to assist your business in achieving its mission, vision, and goals.

1. Bring workers into the discussion.
   One of the smartest ways to gain employee buy-in around any initiative is to ask employees to participate in the process. Setting up internal councils and think tanks around tech reduces fear of the unknown and allows workers to bring their energy and ideas to the table. Most workers aren’t given the opportunity to be decision-makers regarding the digital tools at their disposal; you can buck this trend and empower them to add their voices to the conversation.

   For instance, you might want to start by asking employees to fill out a departmental or company-wide survey. The survey should be geared toward asking about the tech they currently use and the tech they’d like to have at their disposal. Expect to hear some surprises: Around 80 worker hours are lost to outdated tech each year. Your team members know this, and nearly half may be ready to leave if you don’t put updates into play.

   Rather than making mandates, make everyone feel like their opinions hold weight for you and the rest of your executive team. You don’t have to implement every new tech suggestion that comes your way, but listening to employees can go a long way toward your people actually using company tech.

2. Answer the old “WIIFM” question.
   If you’re old enough, you’ve probably heard the acronym WIIFM, or “What’s in it for me?” Though once used to guide sales funnel dialogues between sales representatives and their prospects, WIIFM is useful in the context of getting employees to try newer tech. By answering their inherent (and typically unspoken) WIIFM question, you’ll communicate the value of a technical system or product and gain valuable, personal buy-in.

   This can be especially helpful to remember if your workforce includes those who are hesitant to embrace anything outside of their comfort zones. However, don’t assume that it’s all your Gen X and Baby Boomer-aged workers who are going to push back against tech. Most employees over age 50 are quite happy to try the latest tech. Many even claimed they were less stressed by the thought of shifting to new tech than their younger colleagues.

   With that being said, do try to unearth your team members’ greatest concerns so you can point out the positives of tech you want to incorporate into your operations. The fear of the unknown can be very strong. However, it can vanish quickly when you make the value of a tool obvious.

3. Position a tech upgrade as a chance for upskilling.
   Workers know it’s vital to keep their skills sharp, which is why 48% would change jobs to work for an employer that prioritizes upskilling. You can leverage this desire for professional development when presenting new tech to employees.
   Mark O’Donnell, Visionary and CEO at EOS Worldwide, an organization of successful entrepreneurs from a variety of backgrounds, agrees that reframing tech as both an exciting challenge and chance to get trained makes sense for most companies. “Never underestimate your people’s ability to adapt,” he explains. “You really have to find that balance per person and there’s not a broad brush that solves it all.”
   O’Donnell advises that leaders pinpoint each employee’s motivation to lower anxiety and improve engagement. He notes that some people enjoy learning and failing fast, whereas others want more of an incremental change. Understanding what makes each person on your team feel comfortable transitioning to a new tech will allow you to create and offer training programs that allow them to master tech on their terms. The result will be an upskilled workforce for you and enhanced credentials for them.

Technology keeps improving at a speed that no one could have imagined just 30 years ago. To keep up, you’ll need your team members to be ready to dive right in. And the way to do that is to give them a chance to contribute, put their needs first, and train them appropriately.

Written by Rhett Power.
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