Digital Transformation is changing the way organizations operate and largely for the better. Organizations are making better use of high-speed internet and the large range of SaaS offerings at their fingertips. The Covid-19 pandemic has given extra pace to the urgency to move to more digital and Cloud-based platforms. However, a problem is looming under the hood in many organizations, both commercial and not-for-profit. How to keep staff up to date with your organization’s Digital Transformation?
One-click signups
SaaS products typically have free, or low-priced entry levels, allowing organizations to have almost instant access to products. Although this is brilliant, it is leading to organizations having more and more software subscriptions. Without central coordination, there is a risk of teams becoming siloed in the solution that works best for them, and every department has its own set of preferred software applications.
As there is largely no big financial commitment, many organizations don’t do the same due diligence as they would have done if there was a £30k capital investment. Nor do they typically go through the internal levels of approval before consuming a new service due to the low cost and loose contracts. This can lead to wasted time in a SaaS product that doesn’t meet all of its business requirements.
The speed at which new software can be decided upon and set up is creating fundamental gaps in the foundations. Most SaaS offerings pride themselves on being intuitive, which is great, but a side effect of this is that training for staff to get the most out of a new application is largely missing or inconsistent.
SaaS Training
The vast majority of SaaS products are designed to be intuitive with in-product tips and walk-me’s to help users navigate the product. However, these should largely be treated as introductions, reminders, or short-term training, they will not, for example, tell you how to configure a CRM for long-term success. Instead, there will typically be training pages, training videos, and possibly even training course’s available to give the fundamental training for long-term success.
Some of these training courses such as Hubspot’s, are awesome. They are very thorough, and your certificate expires every few years as they are conscious their product evolves over time. The expiration of a users certification prompting them to refresh their training.
The reality is the though, even with great 3rd party training available, organizations have very limited visibility, if any, to the external training an employee undertakes. Some employees may do no external training, while you may find employees have done different versions of training.
How to keep staff up to date with your organization’s Digital Transformation?
Overall you should use as many of the SaaS product providers’ training resources as possible. They have already done the work and should be the most current.
As the stakeholder of the SaaS product, complete all of the training yourself and make a list of what resources will be relevant for people within your organisation.
Create a small course on your organization’s LMS (if you have one), or PDF to accompany the SaaS product training. This is to ensure the users know what your organization wants to get out of the SaaS product.
Either in your LMS or create a Google Sheet Quiz for employees to complete once they have completed the training. This will act as a record to record a particular user who has done the training and then passed a knowledge check quiz.
Ideally, your organization will have an LMS system that will hold a record of training. If you do not have an LMS, ensure you log it somewhere.
Finally, remember to review the training often. Product training should never be a one time only thing, especially when dealing with SaaS products.
Thanks for reading, I hope you found this useful.