Office 365 enablement

Typically, for any new technology, product deployment is the focus. All too often creating a positive employee experience is an afterthought. The human factor – the most crucial aspect of delivering improved business outcomes – is missing. However, it is essential that consideration is given to the workforce and how they will adapt to new ways of working.

Real business value from investments in technology also needs to align with a shift in behaviour from employees.

To realise the benefits of Office 365, and to enhance workforce performance, you need to prepare people for the new capabilities of Office 365. A training video or a how-to document does not always suffice. It takes time, experience, and commitment to deliver real business results.

To help drive user adoption, here are 6 change enablement tips for Office 365:

Encourage change champions

Executive leadership must become Office 365 champions, leading by example through visibly engaging with the new technology and promoting its benefits. If senior leaders are using Microsoft Teams, others will feel they could benefit from doing the same. This lead-by-example approach encourages the transition to new ways of working and creates a rich culture.

Be clear about the business value of Office 365

Successful implementation of Office 365 starts with a clear understanding of your business objectives and employees’ needs. Being very specific about the benefits they will gain is the key. For example, telling them you are deploying a tool to help them collaborate and share documents is not as powerful as relaying the benefit that they will be able to compile and report on their monthly sales figures in half the time. Your organisations’ vision must be connected to the things your employees care about.

Understand your end-users needs

Focus on identifying, understanding and engaging the people impacted by the change, and invite them to come along on the journey. An effective user adoption strategy is designed from the ground up to directly support the impacted stakeholders and address the business scenarios most relevant to them. This approach will help you to prioritise what to roll-out first as part of your overall Office 365 deployment.

Incremental steps rather than a big bang approach

Office 365 is a powerful productivity platform that positively changes the way people work. However, sometimes, the change required to appreciate these possibilities can be overwhelming. The move to Office 365 should be evolutionary, not a rapid launch. Rather than trying to implement the full Office 365 suite at once, start with the mission-critical products that will enable your stakeholders to solve their immediate pain points. This builds credibility, achieves quick wins, and allows people to become comfortable and adapt over time.

Communication is key

It is important to relay the business benefits of Office 365 early in the adoption process so that it resonates with your workforce. The information shared should be relevant, relatable and consumable – whatever that means for a given audience.

Use an Office 365 partner, combining internal and external expertise

The most effective teams are those who lean on a support partner to execute an effective change enablement strategy. With combined teams, employees feel that change is happening with them on board rather than to them. It also reinforces that the change is owned and driven by their colleagues and not an outside consulting partner.

Office 365 is an evergreen technology platform, where all its components are always up-to-date, improving, and evolving. Our goal is for our customers to become self-sufficient so that they can continue to enable change for themselves as new functionality becomes available.

Incremental is helping organisations to roll-out Office 365, and through our experience, we have learned a lot about how to optimise organisational adoption. We are committed to supporting the human and technical aspects of the journey to Office 365.

Find out more about Office 365 or contact us to find out how our Office 365 experts can help you.