Putting people at the centre of measuring digital transformation success

Eman Al-Hillawi, CEO at business change consultancy Entec Si, argues that when trying to constantly capitalise on new technology and innovations, business leaders can unintentionally exclude employees or make them feel left behind. While the success of a digital transformation project has been measured against a strict checklist of predetermined key performance indicators (KPIs), more often than not, this misses out the most important measurement of all, people. 

The rate that technology is advancing has been measured by Moore’s Law for just over 60 years. It demonstrates the speed at which how many operations per second the computer can perform increases, originally doubling each year. However, as a result of the ongoing AI race and drive to reach new digital levels, it now doubles approximately every six months, significantly shortening the life cycle of digital technologies.

This demonstrates that the success of digital transformation projects can’t simply be measured by how quickly technology is rolled out, teams must also take an organisation wide view, considering factors such as ROI, longevity, and, most importantly, practical and people-based measures of success.

Business leaders should rely on the power of people to harness the digital revolution, and workforce specific considerations should be used to signify the success or failure of a change project. People must be considered if businesses are to truly understand the impact of a digital transformation project and ensure lasting change.

Adapting the way success is measured within transformation projects can have huge benefits, particularly as technology specific goal posts are constantly changing due to new software. Understanding employee adoption and staff usage of new tools is an important measurement to help leaders explore potential knowledge gaps, pinch points or in some cases, resistance to change. This can be monitored through anonymised tracking of the number of logins to a new system or application, new feature usage or calculating total sustained use over time. Businesses should aim to measure how quickly people adapt to the new programme and employee sentiment by analysing data and statistics, such as increases in productivity and a decrease in employee turnover. However, it could also be that business leaders notice a general improvement in morale across the team.

Personal shifts

A more personalised approach to collecting data could also be taken by scheduling one-to-one sessions with employees to gather information and feedback throughout the change journey and after. This method helps keep people at the heart of a process and provides managers will a clearer understanding of the general uptake of new technology post-transformation. Organisations could also track improvements by undertaking pulse surveys every quarter to see how staff are feeling about the new system or ways of working. This can be very useful for identifying training and skill development needs as well as potential process improvements. We would recommend scheduling quarterly surveys over a 12-month period, as we know that people may struggle in the first 3-6 months.

Change is personal so understanding general sentiment across the team is a great way to identify potential resistance and to flag where managers may need to invest more time and support. Some employees might be feeling overwhelmed or frustrated which, if ignored, could escalate and impact the wider team. Conducting regular sentiment and engagement assessments at scheduled check points throughout the change process can help managers to navigate and avoid this.

Putting people at the heart of change and shifting the way success is measured is a great way to tackle the accelerating tech cycle and ensure lasting transformation. By broadening the definition of change success within a business to include more employee-related considerations, the pressure to consistently upgrade and update technology decreases massively. Expanding KPIs to include cultural milestones is an easy first step that businesses can take to put staff first and avoid technological burn out.

When it comes to business, those who wish to remain competitive and agile need to understand that there is more to success than quickly implementing new technologies. Instead, taking a slower and more considered approach to transformation and prioritising the people within the business will boost productivity and ensure change for good.