Managing technological change in the company

Trudi Canavan’s quote fits perfectly with managing technological change in a company, as there are many challenges involved in implementing a new IT system in an organization. These activities can, of course, have a positive impact on the company’s employees and efficiency, provided that special attention is paid to effective communication of changes. The process of managing technological change involves several steps to prepare employees for the introduction of a new system and minimize resistance to technological change.

Many business managers often don’t realize what a big change among their employees is a minor update to the IT systems they run on, let alone the implementation of a completely new system. Of course, it depends on what purpose the system was implemented for and how mature the organization is.

After all, if it hasn’t used digital solutions before (paper and manual reporting still prevail in some production areas), the change associated with implementing an IT system is a total revolution. In addition, often decision-makers and those in the conception and decision-making circle already know well at the time of system implementation what the solution will look like and how it should work. This approach, unfortunately, can lock in a kind of bubble in which decision-makers forget that employees outside of those who participated in the discussions are completely unaware of what the system is for, how it is used and why the company is implementing it at all.

Not infrequently, the biggest problem of a system “not working” comes from the fact that people simply don’t want to or can’t use it. And the reason is a lack of change management.

If an employee’s work environment changes, to whatever degree, that’s some kind of change. And any change has to be managed. There are different kinds of changes. A change can be, for example:

The change management process eliminates any confusion. If an enterprise consists of dozens of employees, any change causes consternation. The larger the scale, the more rumors and misunderstandings about why the change occurred.

It’s not uncommon for there to be a drop in efficiency when a change is introduced, because if a company makes a change by leaps and bounds without informing employees of the reasons, it’s simply inconvenient for them.

Change is a constant part of development, and an organization without change cannot grow. It is simply unrealistic. However, both minor and major changes should be managed on an ongoing basis through appropriate communication and information policies.

The larger the scale, the more difficult it is, because there are a limited number of tools to convey this information. However, in such a case, the structure in the company is larger, and its task is that from the top down, first the top level managers are trained in change management, then those of the middle level, and then those of the lowest level leaders. Finally, the rest of the employees.

Of course, the scope of changes can be really wide. At explitia, dealing with the implementation of IT systems in production, we note that it is not uncommon for our system to be the first solution of this class in a customer’s production facility. It is very common for a consumer to report production manually so far – employees would write out sheets of paper in a notebook, where they reported on quantity, quality and reasons for downtime.

If such a manufacturing company has decided on a system to automate the way reports are run, this is a huge change in the nature of everyone’s work in manufacturing. Suddenly, they will start ,standing from tablets, monitors and other electronic tools. However, it is important to remember that there is a positive mission behind it all:

It is crucial to put in place communication that will inform why the company has decided on the system. It is worthwhile for every employee to know how the company will function with the innovation.

It goes without saying that you’ll never get your message to everyone, but by doing so, you offset a very large part of the productivity loss that results from presenting your employees with a fact in front of them.

Managing technological change in a company is a process that should not be ignored. It requires effective communication and preparation of employees. Even minor changes in IT systems can cause resistance, so it is crucial to clearly communicate the reasons and benefits of the innovations being introduced. The process should include workshops, training and transparent communication at all levels of the organization, which minimizes loss of efficiency and promotes positive adoption of changes.