Help your organization manage change
Adapting to any form of new technology can seem daunting at first. To make your employees feel supported through this change, you can establish change management best practices. More importantly, make sure different roles and regions throughout the organization understand how Viva Connections will provide immediate value in their day-to-day work.
Change management strategies:
- Continue to engage early adopters and champions with their enthusiasm and expertise to engage the rest of the organization during meetings or training sessions. Consider getting certified as a Microsoft Service Adoption Specialist using the Microsoft Service adoption framework.
- Organize opportunities for live demonstrations of useful features like the Dashboard, Feed, Resource, and how these components can make their tasks and responsibilities easier.
- Find corporate sponsors in leadership positions who can help promote the use of new tools.
- Use other Viva platforms like Viva Learning to share curated training on how to use the platform.
- Connect employees to Microsoft’s training for end-users to promote adoption.
- Set up weekly training sessions and user groups that appeal to specific roles and workflows.
- Ask end users for feedback and provide multiple ways to connect so that the experience can be improved over time.
- Create an open channel for questions in Teams and Yammer.
- Make sure help is always available as employees begin using Viva Connections.
- Over the first 90 days, regularly revisit your organization’s success metrics to track progress and learn more about how audiences engage with Viva Connections.
- Use multiple channels and techniques such as posters, emails, campaigns, training, user groups to inform, engage, train, and reinforce the adoption of Viva Connections and its security compliance.
Learn how Lamna Healthcare manages the change with the adoption
As the Internal Communications Manager, you successfully recruit champions for the adoption of Viva Connections at each hospital location. Now, they can help their colleagues adopt Viva Connections in their own units.
For example, Cora was a part of the testing and a champion for Viva Connections at the Department of Physicians & Nurses of Lamna Healthcare. Cora is enthusiastic about Viva Connections and is excited to help the colleagues use it. Cora knows that several people on the team aren’t comfortable using new technology right away. Even though the current system of manually clocking in and out of shifts on a shared computer is frustrating and laborious, the team is used to the system. Anticipating their reluctance to change, Cora offers to provide a series of 10-minute hands-on mini training sessions during lunch breaks to help the colleagues learn how to use Viva Connections to clock in and out on their phones. Cora also posts more information on the announcement board in the break room close to where employees' clock in and out. The posters, provided by the Internal Communications manager, break down the new logging process in three simple steps, which makes it easy for Cora’s colleagues to learn about it.
Working with HR and the training and personal development team, you curate a series of self-paced training courses for Viva Connections and make them available on channels that will reach specific audiences. Training materials consist of short tutorial videos and demonstrations on how to use the Dashboard, the Feeds, and Resources for specific roles and tasks.