Moving to Office 365 and migrating your desktop to the Microsoft Cloud is nearly always a move in a positive direction for any business. There are more applications available, faster and more collaborative ways to work and communicate, slicker and easily accessible portals but has anyone spared a thought for the end user? They must learn, adopt and become a proficient user without affecting productivity.
In our experience, the end user is often the last factor to be considered when a business undergoes the migration. How do they feel about the decision made by the business to make the software upgrade?
When any business undergoes periods of change there will be a sense of uncertainty. Feelings of hesitancy amongst the staff and its up to the leaders to address these issues before they become concerns.
Time and again, the trusted pairing of business training and managerial support will see any project through to its delivery and eventual execution.
Following this are the key areas in which a business needs to address in order to ensure that the emotional and practical needs of the workforce are met, and the business delivers on their employees’ expectations.
Communicating the change
Moving to the Cloud with Office 365 could be a major change to how they work depending on what they do. A solid communication plan and effective change management in place are critical to deliver the smoothest transition possible.
Communicate why this is happening and keep all staff informed of the milestones of the journey and the dates in question when it will be taking place.
What should effective end user training look like?
My colleague asked me, ‘what exactly is Microsoft Office 365’ and I always say, ‘it’s simply anytime and anywhere access to cloud based email, calendars, websites and office applications securely’.
I usually get the responses of, ‘really, I thought it was more complicated and technical than that, how will this affect me?’
To address this, the business would have to provide a comprehensive training program to ensure all users know their responsibilities when using Office 365.
The best approach to this is to use a blend of practical instructor lead workshop. Here delegates will be shown how to access and conduct a variety of tips and functionalities in order to maximise adoption of Office 365.
The training should foster an inclusive and safe environment where all delegates learning is considered. Training is then supported with plenty of time allotted for questions, demonstrations and practice.
Post training support
Many training providers fall into the trap of not providing enough floorwalker in the post training phase of Office 365 deployments. This extra degree of support when users are in a ‘live’ environment can be the real difference in meeting the expectations of end users. It also guarantees a smooth transition as users embrace and fully adopt the new technology.
By always keeping in mind the emotional and practical needs of the people during a period of major change, with the right layers of support, end users will eventually start using the technology to its full potential allowing the business to prosper.
