Our Senior Recruiter, Fee Kennardsmith, talks through some things to consider when going through a digital transformation and how to ensure you have a good company culture during the process.
In a time when digital technologies in the workplace are rapidly growing, you need to make sure you don’t lose sight of how your employees will adapt to your transformation programme.
You need to make a best effort of training and educating your employees to come along with your digital journey.
I was once told that, it’s not a digital technology transformation that fails, it’s how you embed it into the culture that determines success or failure. If you miss this organisational change element of the transformation, you may have just wasted all the money you have invested into the new technology.
You want people to use the new efficient way of working to make the programme successful. You don’t want them to keep to the old “stored” files on their desktop because they are too nervous to use a new cloud storage solution.
Here are some things to consider…
- Culture is made up of beliefs, attitudes and behaviours of your employees across all the levels of the business.
- A good organisational culture is when business leaders are being accountable and provide clarity and clear communication to their employees.
- A bad organisational culture is filled with conflict everywhere, employees feeling a lack of trust in their leadership. Bullying and harassment is a daily occurrence. When you find leaders holding back information or not communicating their business strategy, it leaves the employee confused about the business as a whole and how valued they are to the business. It can create fears of the unknown which then demotivates employees and creates toxic behaviours.
So, how do you create a good culture while going through a digital transformation or any transformation?
- Ensure all employees know their role in the transformation and why the organisation is going along the journey.
- Communication, communication, communication! C-level, Executive Leaders and Managers all have a responsibility to provide clear and effective communication to their employees for a successful digital transformation.
- Designate some ‘champions’ in your workforce, these are the people that you know will promote the transformation positively to other employees. They will have a great attitude to change, helping others to understand the transformation and to convince them the change will be better for them and the organisation for the future if they invest in it.
- Adequate training and validating that the employee has understood what they have been asked to do.
- Remember… it takes patience, empathy, transparency and effort when listening to employees. People learn at different stages so listening to them will enable you to know if they need more help to adopt to the new way of working.
- Finally, make sure everyone is accountable for the transformation.
Building and retaining talent can be a good benchmark of how to measure if you achieved a successful digital transformation.
At Devonshire, we understand how imperative it is to find good employees and the need to retain them in this highly competitive marketplace. If you need any help finding incredible candidates for your digital and organisational transformation initiatives, we are ready to help.
Please reach out to Fee Kennardsmith on [email protected].
