An HCM adoption platform can improve the outcomes of your HCM adoption efforts.
In this post, we’ll look at a few ways these platforms can enhance the outcomes of your efforts while also minimizing obstacles, mistakes, and inefficiencies. First, however, it is important to know what an HCM adoption platform is, how they work, and what to look for when choosing an adoption platform.
What Is an HCM Adoption Platform?
An HCM adoption platform is a digital software application designed to simplify and streamline the implementation and utilization of HCM platforms in a business.
Among other things, HCM adoption platforms focus on optimizing the key stages of digital adoption, including:
- User onboarding
- User training
- Business process improvement
- Ongoing user performance improvement
Although there is no agreed-upon definition of which tool is the best to use for HCM adoption, digital adoption platforms (DAPs) are generally the best platforms to use when adopting any B2B SaaS application, including HCM platforms.
DAPs include features specifically designed to streamline and enhance software adoption, including user onboarding, training, and ongoing support.
They can also help overcome many of the most common obstacles to HCM adoption, such as software-related frustration and employee resistance.
Features of DAPs include:
- Software walkthroughs
- Product tours
- In-app guidance
- Chatbot interfaces
- Workflow automation features
- Software analytics
DAPs, incidentally, are not limited to the adoption of HCM tools. They can also be used for the adoption of other critical B2B platforms, such as CRM platforms and ERP platforms.
How to Use an HCM Adoption Platform to Simplify Software Deployment
Here are a few pointers that can help simplify software development when using HCM platforms:
Understand the value of using an HCM platform
To maximize the ROI of any digital adoption solution, including an HCM platform, it is necessary to actually understand the benefits that these tools bring to the table.
A few of the biggest benefits of HCM adoption platforms include:
- Shortening the adoption timeline
- Decreasing resistance to change
- Closing the digital skills gap
- Simplifying and improving the user experience
- Accelerating time-to-productivity
- Boosting overall user performance metrics
In short, DAPs help to maximize the ROI of your software investment.
Set goals for your adoption process
Setting goals and measurable objectives does several things.
On the one hand, goals help you set a “north star” to aim towards when structuring your adoption process, since they help you establish priorities, plans, roles, responsibilities, and other critical elements of the adoption plan.
At the same time, having this structure will enhance the overall performance of your adoption efforts, reducing the chances that you will miss your objectives or that the effort will fail completely.
Take a structured, data-driven approach to digital adoption
Although every organization is unique, many digital adoption strategies focus on the same general aims, such as:
- Reducing employees’ time-to-productivity
- Maximizing overall proficiency and productivity
- Increasing software utilization
- Maximizing software ROI
To achieve these goals, managers should develop a structured adoption process that focuses on the stages of digital adoption mentioned above – user onboarding, training, and support.
Each of these stages, in turn, should be continually evaluated using metrics such as:
- Time-to-competency
- Overall software proficiency
- Feature usage
- Software deployment costs
- Business process metrics
- Software ROI
Importantly, these metrics should not only focus on the ROI of the HCM platform itself, but also on the ROI of the adoption process. It is therefore important to develop mechanisms that can demonstrate the costs, effectiveness, and profits of the HCM adoption platform.
Create a plan that addresses the human side of change
An adoption platform addresses both the “hard” and the “soft” side of software implementation – that is, it addresses skills development and process improvement, as well as the user experience.
Addressing both of these aspects of organizational change are critical to success, as change managers know.
Focusing exclusively on skills and tools neglects an important aspect of the change process: employees’ emotions, attitudes, and behaviors. If those aren’t accounted for, there is a greater chance that employees will feel disconnected from the change effort, which can result in resistance, frustration, or worse.
For this reason, digital adoption plans should incorporate change management best practices that focus on tasks such as:
- Building awareness of the need for change
- Communicating how the change will occur
- Inviting feedback and participation from employees
- Recruiting a corps of change champions
For more information on these topics, see our articles that cover change management communication, as well as change management models, such as the ADKAR model.
Final Thoughts
Having the right digital adoption solution is one of the best ways to streamline and improve HCM adoption.
Using a DAP, as mentioned, can significantly accelerate the adoption timeline, while also increasing efficiency, performance, and outcomes.
At the same time, however, it is also important to take a structured approach to digital adoption. Ideally, that approach should address both the technical and the human side of change. Employees after all, lie at the heart of every organization and their support is critical to the success of any organizational change effort, including digital adoption efforts.
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WalkMe Team
WalkMe spearheaded the Digital Adoption Platform (DAP) for associations to use the maximum capacity of their advanced resources. Utilizing man-made consciousness, AI, and context-oriented direction, WalkMe adds a powerful UI layer to raise the computerized proficiency, everything being equal.