Talk to Your Staff About Tech Success and Stumbling Blocks
You may be in charge of tech for your entire business, but that doesn’t mean you actually use all the technology you source, install, and maintain. You're responsible for updating that tech, supporting it, and monitoring for threats, yet you don’t have hands-on with that tech day in and day out. That means you can’t fully understand what’s working and what isn’t.rnrnTo gain a holistic picture of how your technology is working, ask the people who use it every day. You can’t rely on the fact that people aren’t complaining to mean your hardware or software is running smoothly.rnrnThere are many reasons employees might not reach out to tell you what’s wrong:rn
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- They are too busy to bring up their issues. rn
- They don’t know how to communicate what’s holding them up. rn
- They don’t realize that the obstacle they’re hitting isn’t normal for a particular solution. rn
- They don’t know who to talk to about the problems they are having. rn
Gain the employee’s perspective
rnIf you’re in IT, you’re seldom found in the trenches with your sales or marketing. You aren’t in accounting trying to track payments or keep up with supply-chain management. So, you can’t expect to know what the lived experience of your tech is like for those teams.rnrnTalking to your staff about what’s needed can help you learn about:rn- rn
- digital solutions your people have heard about from peers at other companies; rn
- new technologies staff would like to try; rn
- roadblocks that are slowing productivity and undermining employee morale; rn
- low-hanging-fruit changes that you can make to improve an employee’s experience (e.g. adding a second screen may be all that a disgruntled staffer needs to see their job isn’t so bad). rn
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- What works well for you? rn
- What challenges are you facing? rn
- What would make your life easier? rn