5 Tips for Adopting Workplace Technologies

This week’s Talent Culture Tchat inspired us to think beyond a 140 characters. Led by China Gorman, CEO of Great Place to Work- the final question for discussion really hit home.

“How can HR convince leadership that workplace technology is a smart investment?”

As an HR technology vendor, we know just how often HR professionals are faced with the challenge of explaining this type of investment to leadership. You’re convinced that it can better your company, save money, improve processes, etc. But how do you convince your boss, or even their bosses?

We talked to a few of our favorite HR experts and put together our top five tips for convincing leadership an investment in HR technologies is worth it.

5 Tips for Selling Workplace Tech

1. Start by clearly defining the metrics that matter.  Take a page out of retail giant Lowes’ book. “Identify your value proposition, and make sure it’s bolstered by your HR business plans and strategies.” Define and understand just how engagement can be reflected in the bottom line. (The Lowe’s approach)
   
   
2. Read the case studies! Compare yourself to industry benchmarks. Strive to emulate the success stories when it comes to HR tech. Understand how your competitors operate and define what makes you different. With these differences, see how technology can enhance your strengths and help improve your weaknesses.
   
   
3. Give tech a trial run. It may be best to start with beta testing a technology with a smaller group or division. Closely monitor this group for feedback and responses, and ensure key stakeholders in that beta group are willing and able to provide valid and timely feedback. This way you can quickly and easily uncover just how well the program works for you. It can also reveal insight about how it can adapt to your entire organization when you scale up.
   
   
4. Be prepared to defend yourself. Negative past experiences with a particular technology can make leadership (or stakeholders throughout the organization) wary when it comes to adopting a similar technology again. Understand why and how past systems failed. Confront those problems with your proposed solutions, and reasons why this time (and this technology) is different. Know what makes these new technologies the right move right now and how they can impact your company culture.
   
   
5. Make it easy to implement and adopt. Get straight to the good stuff, and ensure that all of the training strategies and tactics are in place before implementation. Even if investment in an HR technology is the right move, it’s bound to fail miserably if no one learns to use it correctly. And since you’re the one who had the idea, they’ll all be looking at you.

If you have any more tips for implementing HR tech share them with us on Twitter: @_Vocoli ! We’ll be participating in today’s Talent Culture TChat at 7pm ET and can’t wait to hear what you think!