You cannot force adoption. A technically good system can still fail if the people, culture, or organization aren’t ready or willing to use it. Remember, we are not prison wardens. We do not run a jail, and we are not enforcers. But if we have paid for a system and set it up in a way that our people should be able to use, and they are not using it, what are the steps you’re going to take? This is not something I want to go so deep into, but you’re going to have to look for solutions, ways to incentivize.
One thing that I always try to do is to have champions. Depending on how large that team is or the business is, certain people inside the team are going to be trained. They would also be the first point of contact for their fellow team members when they have an issue with the tool, where they do not understand or where they need help. So these champions would come in and have regular training sessions. They would be very involved in the community that the tool is part of, just so they always have an edge, and they’re always up to date with the features or better ways that they could use these tools. It’s one of the ways that I always found quite helpful.
If you have a main person who is always handling issues or these things, then you also have to know how to delegate or how to shift that power. Decentralize the power because your team members could ignore the champions and still always have to go to the main person. Or you can incentivize. I’ve found people who have leaderboards to see which team is more accurate when it comes to data. They’re just ways to make it more interesting to use. Or you can always try to simplify the process.
What if you have done everything to the tool setup or when creating it, and you feel like this is something that they should be able to use, and they’re not using it? You need to try different things. Look at how your people learn, look at how they behave, look at what motivates them, what you think is going to push them. You’re not handing out dollar bills or giving them money for continuously logging in and inputting data, closing things when they should be doing it because it’s part of their job. But you want to make it easier for them. You want to make sure that they are always doing it. Look for what motivates them. Try to put that into the setup of the tool. Try to implement that into how it has been built. And see, monitor. Look at how they behave with this. If something is not working, try something else.