Insights
4 steps to building a successful digital culture for your people
Author
Alison Bawn
People Director
Virgin Media O2 Business
5 minutes
24th July 2024
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Is your business digital-ready?
If you’re in any way involved with deploying new tech in your organisation, it’s likely that you will have been asked this question many times before.
But what does it really mean to set up your business in a way that makes it ready and open to adopting everything digital?
It’s called a ‘digital culture’ and it goes beyond just the tools that you and your people use. It’s about the training, processes and mindset that you embed into your business to ensure you’re getting the most out of your digital tools and priming yourself for what the future holds.
Investing in new tools can come with plenty of advantages, but it also comes with the risk of leaving your employees behind. Part of the problem can be a lack of rigorous and regular upskilling, but another aspect is failing to make your employees a part of crucial investment discussions and decisions.
Success comes from ensuring your employees are the foundation of your digital culture. So how can you build a culture of empowered and motivated people who have the tech they need at their fingertips?
1. Make process a priority
Employee engagement metrics fell from 41% to 37% last year, and the decline is set to continue across the rest of 2024, according to Forrester.
The driving forces behind this trend is known as an ‘employee experience recession’, where investment in the tools, training and policies that empowers employees has been steadily deprioritised.
And those that are thinking about people and tools often forget to think about the processes that sit alongside them to make things work. Processes which would help answer things like:
- Have you consulted widely enough before investing in a new suite of tools?
- Do you know how your people use their tech and what their pain points are?
- Have you kept them up to date with the rollout of new systems?
- Have you identified superusers who can support?
- Are we always thinking about the end customer impact?
Asking these questions throughout an investment process will be key to ensuring they have what they need to work.
And it’s not just about investing in new tools. As Melissa Werry, Head of Technology Services at the RSPB told us recently, it’s about what you put in place around it.
"People still struggle with the large questions. How do you bring teams together? How do I organise all of my information and data?
That takes a larger cultural shift."
Answering these questions means having insight from your employees. So consider the value of diversity and inclusion networks that connect and support the varied demographics of your business and help unlock sponsors or advocates for your culture.
These networks are invaluable to ensuring your planning is going to meet the specific needs of the people at the heart of your business.
2. Plan slow to implement fast
Digital culture is all about holistic change, embedding digital across your business, not just implementing a new system. But planning these phases of investment can be tricky, especially with such a rapidly advancing tech landscape.
The key here is to not neglect the planning stage. Lean on your digital partners to understand what the implementation process looks like and get all the advice and expertise you can before pressing go.
With the right onboarding, training and troubleshooting processes in place before you implement, you’ll be in the right place to make rapid improvements.
Let’s look at a specific example from Virgin Media O2. Say you want to introduce a new digital platform such as Workplace, which is like Facebook for your company. Introducing this quickly may open up comms and collaboration, but if your people don’t fully understand how to use the tool they can get lost in disorganised feeds and miss the important content like company updates.
3. Spotlight your superusers
The crucial step in building a digital culture for your people is giving them the skills to use their tech.
82% of jobs in the UK now require digital skills according to Digital Poverty Alliance, so training can’t be seen as a one-off.
It’s crucial to ingrain basic digital practises into employees as a foundational step so they can maximise the potential of the technologies they are using before taking on any enhanced training.
Upskilling should be offered when employees are comfortable and ready to top up their skills and address any specific concerns they have.
A common mistake is that we try and upskill people on everything all at once and then wonder why knowledge and adoption is low. Training your team to exploit the benefits starting with the basics and then, when they are comfortable, going back with enhanced training will help them realise the tech’s full value.
It’s also beneficial to champion superusers and empower them to help their peers. By spotlighting a few users who haven’t previously used a new tool, you can build a network of advocates who can help with onboarding new employees.
Peer-to-peer learning is effective for exposing people to knowledge that they might not have found themselves, according to Deloitte. So help your employees help themselves, even if that means taking a tactical step back.
4. Measure your outcomes
How do you recognise the success of a digital culture? How long until you start to see the return on your investment (ROI)?
It’s understandable that these are pressing questions for businesses concerned with supporting their bottom line. So make sure you’re asking them in the initial planning stage, not when you’ve already implemented a new tool.
Discussing ROI right from the beginning can help you make smarter choices about how get you the most of your tech and how you can see returns quicker.
Again, lean on your suppliers here. Can they share expertise from previous case studies? Have you discussed your specific markers of success so that they can help you demonstrate the value of your investment?
Be vocal about how you use your tech and the benefit it delivers. Release budget to empower superusers where possible to ensure that knowledge trickles down.
And hold yourself accountable to the plans you’ve made – show your employees that you’ve taken their thoughts into consideration and that their work is making a difference.
These key tenets – curiosity, transparency, accountability – underpin every successful digital culture. Your employees are the backbone of your business, so make sure they’re also the foundation of your technology.
If you can make your tech work for your employees and not the other way around, you’ll be able to start seeing the benefits of a digital culture today.
Explore more insights in our Digital Culture Insider series
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