Technology reshapes industries faster and faster every year. As a result, your business may face challenges adapting to this emerging new world. Whether your team is ready for technology adoption, or you're wondering about new automation trends or modernizing legacy applications, consider that:

• Automated jobs consistently increase by 14% annually.
• At least one function is fully automated in 31% of businesses.
• Two-thirds of knowledge workerssay automation improved their productivity.

As the world sets sail on yet another journey of workplace transformation, adoption and change management may take the helm to successfully steer businesses into the future. Today, you'll dive into management strategies for automation and discover actionable steps to navigate organizational change management and ensure a seamless transition into automation.

Adoption and Change Management 101

Change management is the process of guiding your business through change, such as the adoption of new technologies and automation. In a time when countless articles are published daily about technologies, such as AI, wiping out jobs in the coming years, your team may feel hesitant about technology adoption. But, with the right change management procedure, you can turn your team into power users of emerging technologies. 

Let's look at some topics that may come up:

• Organizational change:The broader view of change that encompasses your entire organization, from top-tier leadership to frontline employees
• User adoption: Not just using new automation tools, but also fully understanding and embracing their benefits
• Legacy applications: Older software, crucial for operations but insufficient for current needs, that could be updated or replaced via legacy application modernization
• Enterprise application strategy:A plan for selecting, implementing, and using software applications to achieve positive business outcomes
• Feedback loops:Gathering, evaluating, and acting on feedback for a smooth transition to automation
• User perspectives:Individual views on changes, especially new technologies

Strategies To Prepare When Adopting Automation

As you make this pivotal shift, you and your team can apply several strategies to prepare for and embrace application modernization and automation adoption. Let's explore six adoption and change management strategies to set you on the road to successful adoption.

1. Create a Compelling Vision and Develop a Clear Communication Plan

Having a concise, compelling vision can be a guiding North Star for you and your team. Everyone heading toward the same light? That's a checkpoint that goals are aligned and no one got left behind. This vision should highlight potential transformations, benefits, and opportunities to inspire and motivate your entire organization.

However, the potency of this vision can only come to fruition when paired with an effective communication plan. A clear, comprehensive communication plan can demystify complexities, mitigate misconceptions and worries, and facilitate your enterprise application strategy. 

2. Ensure Employee Engagement Throughout the Implementation Process

Engaged employees are more likely to support and champion your new organizational change, but how do you keep them engaged? Engagement often trickles down from the top — when leaders are actively involved, then employees engage. You and your team can foster this by:

• Investing your time in user training sessions with the team
• Demonstrating a personal commitment to the coming changes
• Keeping two-way channels of communication that build a sense of trust
• Recognizing and celebrating achievements genuinely
• Being open to employees' feedback, even when it may not be positive

Remember that your employees are not just going through a technological transition but a personal one as well. If they believe that you're not in the same boat as them, they could lose interest, making the automation adoption process more challenging for everyone. 

3. Identify Automation Opportunities

While some may think that automation primarily provides opportunities for businesses, employees can benefit from technology adoption as well. For example, as repetitive tasks become automated, employees can grow and become lifelong learners within their profession. This may take the form of nurturing skills in data analysis, project management, and creative strategic insight. Growing in new, uncharted areas has the potential to give employees a deeper feeling of job satisfaction because they'll be able to measure their achievements in meaningful contributions

Additionally, learning more about these constantly evolving technologies can open doors to career advancement opportunities and the possibility of a whole new career path. 

4. Develop a Thorough Training Program

Every employee within your organization is going to adopt the coming changes differently. To maximize the successful implementation of your new automation technology, you can develop a training plan that considers multiple user perspectives. To do this, you could:

• Offer multiple training formats to address various types of user needs, such as live workshops, online tutorials, video demonstrations, and printed manuals
• Pair power users — those who are naturally tech-savvy and keen to adopt new technologies — with users who need more guidance
• Set up hands-on workshops that allow employees to experiment with the knowledge they've learned and discover how it applies in real time
• Employ a service specializing in process automation to make everything more accessible and step-by-step

5. Manage Expectations

Managing expectations is vital to employee engagement, satisfaction, and overall success. When expectations are set too high, employees may feel discouraged and unmotivated. 

Begin by outlining clear overall goals and attainable objectives within a realistic timeframe. This gives users time to adapt to the system change while also motivating them to go above and beyond on each objective. Celebrate these milestones as your team achieves them before moving on to what's next. Managing expectations and providing support increases the likelihood of successful adoption during these changes. 

6. Measure Results

Key performance indicators track an organization's progress toward its goals. In adoption and change management, these indicators may include:

• Project milestone achievements
• Adoption rates
• Training completion rates
• Feedback volume and overall sentiment
• Support query volume

Another more personal way to measure the results of your adoption and change management is to turn to your feedback loop. Gather feedback from your employees and use it to adapt your management practices. After all, the users of automation tools are still human and require a human process when it comes to automation adoption and systems change management. 

Enhance Adoption With the Right Modernization Strategy

The world moves faster, and businesses move faster just to keep up. At BP3Global, we give you faster ways to get things done by designing and delivering business process automation programs. 

We help you design and implement new ways of automation so your business can move at (and anticipate) the speed of future technology.