Asked and answered: How to get employees to ‘lean in’ on the SaaS they already have

Sometimes IT teams get to introduce the shiny new SaaS tool; other times, a tech pro has to remind staff of the SaaS everyone already HaaS.

An attendee of a recent IT Brew event asked, “How do you influence culture to lean into apps that you already own, versus having leaders that always want something new and different?”

We posed the question separately to IT pros who help to manage change, like the introduction of a new tool. Here are excerpts of their advice, edited for length and clarity.

Korea Gilreath, associate director of organizational change management at Avasant: You have to go back to the business case that you made originally for that app first…Why did we make this decision as a leadership team? Go to the core of it, and start your process somewhat from the beginning; then also figure out what is the usage level on this app.

Gilreath: Are there people that are really seeing value? Find your core wins as you start to rebuild your business case and dig back into it. Where are the wins that we can elevate and show people?…Feature them in newsletters, feature them in town halls. 

Nick Kennedy, partner at West Monroe: Oftentimes, maybe the tool doesn't meet the actual needs of the business, right? Maybe IT designed it in a vacuum, and business said “this actually doesn’t help.” Maybe you don’t have documented procedures. Maybe performance incentives aren't aligned to it…Maybe training was ineffective, and people just don't know their proper roles or responsibility.

Gilreath: Look at the training and the communication that [you] laid out originally, and say, “Is this a plan that worked for us? What are the lessons learned here? Where are there gaps, and especially, where are there gaps in our training, where we’re seeing low usage?”

Westfall: Not only can you identify issues, but it’s just a culture thing, right? “Hey, we’re listening. We know these tools aren’t perfect. We want you to flag these issues for us.”

Gilreath: Once an organization has made a decision on an app, it’s very rare you see them pull it back and say, we’re going to actually not use this one. We’re going to go with another one. So, if there are gaps in your business case for a team that’s struggling…are there specialized opportunities that really do need to be considered for that team? Draw on your strategic partners, whoever they may be, for that app, and say, “I need you to take a look at this and figure out, ‘Did we miss something?’”

Kennedy: My stake in the ground is: This all needs to come down to cost and benefit. Don’t get distracted by the shiny object of a new tool, unless there’s big scalability issues or drastic opportunity costs by not evolving.