Any system is only as good as how well it is used. If its a CRM, ERP, or any other system, when users don’t know how to use the system effectively the benefits of the new system for your company will be small, or even negative.
So educating and training your employees is critical to the success of a project — you can never over-train employees on a new system.
Unfortunately, it is hardly ever done right. How many of the below statements sound familiar to you?
“The training was too fast and did not allow time for people to move up the learning curve. There was a very small time window between training and go-live.”
“The training was not supported by written procedures or reference materials — the project team thought some online ‘help’ files would suffice; they didn’t.”
“I think the training team thought they did a great job as their end-of-session evaluations showed good results, but the real measure was the subsequent level of demand on the ‘help desk’ and that showed the training failed to meet the needs of the business.”
“The training was system-operational based. It was too limited. We did not know the business context, the opportunities, why the changes were required, etc. We were just told, this is how you do it now. The business change was ignored in the training scenario, yet this was the most important bit.”
“There were no ‘sustain’ activities, so people quickly reverted to their old habit patterns; often working around the new system to create the old processes as closely as possible. Equally, the new employee’s onboarding training was ignored. We tried to give them the implementation training but found it was inadequate for people new to the firm and its processes.”
“The new systems introduced new disciplines. Correct account codes needed to be entered at source, purchase orders needed correct part numbers on them before they could be sent. These and many other ‘disciplines’ were introduced as part of the system but without any pre-emptive education or communications. They were therefore seen as examples of the new systems’ complexity and increased workload. The downstream benefits were neither known nor considered. As a result, the system got a bad name as ‘too cumbersome’.”
We are all aware of it, and yet we somehow refuse to spend sufficient fund, focus and time on employee education and training.
In a nutshell: In order for your next project that introduces a new system to be a success, make sure that training is a priority.