1. Define the “What” and “Why”

The project teams must understand the company’s vision, mission, and roadmap. Having a clear understanding will help the team address the challenges that might come during implementation and have a smooth deployment. 

Relevant Read: Common Microsoft Dynamics Implementation Challenges

Once they define why different departments within the organization need MS Dynamics and what features they will need to carry out their day-to-day activities, the company can establish the expected business outcomes from the project. 

It will help them strategize various functional aspects of the business and prioritize those which can create an immediate impact on the company’s bottom line.  

A business needs to plan its present requirements and future expectations from the system. Understanding these aspects will also help project teams and Dynamics consultants to plan the way forward.  

With the latest features and functionalities, Dynamics is becoming a great prospect for growing organizations. Although, the vast amount of customization available has made things a little more complicated for companies. The custom functionality is only available through a standardized extension from the Microsoft store. So, this must be taken into consideration while migrating from the existing system. 

If all these factors are considered while planning, businesses can increase user adoption and expedite the change management process.

2. Assign a Team

There’s a common misconception that only the IT teams and the teams directly involved with the project have to deal with Microsoft Dynamics. An organization needs people who can understand the business side of the implementation too.

For this, they need subject matter experts from all the departments dealing with the business decisions and outcomes since they will be impacted by the Dynamics 365 implementation.

These subject matter experts will be key in determining the success of your D365 implementation as they understand their respective business units well. They can explain the requirements better and elaborate on the effect that the implementation will have on their department.

3. Identify Key Metrics

Now that you have assembled a team, you can proceed with defining OKRs and KPIs. These metrics are entirely different from the objectives of departments or organizational goals. KPIs should be measured at the team level where they own the responsibility of improving a particular aspect of the business.  

Quantifying this task will help business leaders check whether the implementation is in line with the organization’s expectations. 

Every team has specific KPIs and it is not limited to any set standards. It also varies from business to business. Having well-defined KPIs helps companies prioritize the right use case and allow them to steer the project towards success.

4. Ensure In-depth Process Review

Let the project teams and department heads review the capabilities of the new ERP software. It helps the team understand the features of D365 and get insights on how to use it for the benefit of the organization.

It allows them to identify and understand the skill gaps so they can plan the training program before the company-wide roll-out of Dynamics 365. 

It is also relatively easy to identify manual processes in the early stages. The project team can modify these processes by automating them so that the implementation is smooth. 

5. Create a Proper Plan

Once the organization knows what its end goal is from the implementation and the KPIs are set for each team, they can go ahead and create a plan. 

Since D365 is a complicated application, it is important to focus on the system’s design, architecture, integration, and processes. There are many technical aspects that the company will have to explore during the planning stage that they can leverage for their benefit.

But the Executive Sponsor and Dynamics Consultant must ensure that the team stays focused on the business’ goals and iteratively improve the execution. The human element is often ignored during the implementation stage and only considered during the user adoption phase.

This could lead even a well-deployed solution to failure. User adoption should be an inclusive part of the implementation process. So, design systems and processes that are usable by the people. 

Create a user adoption strategy that can address onboarding and training and one that focuses on developing long-term skills to ensure successful usage of Dynamics 365.

6. Maintain Clean Data

The toughest job while implementing any software is to maintain data integrity in the defined process. It becomes even more challenging when a new process is deployed. Making sense of what data is important is necessary. Missing crucial data could have a devastating effect on the company’s operational efficiency.

When D365 goes live, it is important to maintain data integrity where you have to introduce new compliances and regulations. 

There are 2 ways you will have to handle data while implementing D365:

7. Test the System

After the workflow and process creation, it is time to test the system and all the workflows on a test group. Straightaway deploying the solution across the organization is a costly affair and rectifying bugs or incorrect flows will be challenging. 

Start with a small test group and check the proficiency of the designed system. Understand the users’ reactions to the system and take their feedback. In this period, you can analyze the adoption rates and other parameters like process completion rate and data compliance using tools like Digital Adoption Platforms. 

The observation during the testing phase will help the project team create documentation and training content which will come in handy when the actual rollout happens.

8. Rollout and Evaluate

Deploying the complete solution at an organization in one go can increase the chances of failure. The deployment must be handled in phases.  

The go-live process can take a month to a quarter and the efficiency of the team is not defined by how fast they execute but by how well the deployed environment works.

The project teams of the respective departments or business units must be prepared to execute the implementation seamlessly. The support team must be ready to answer all the questions posed by the users.

The L&D team should provide training to the users to ensure successful adoption. An organization should also invest in tools like Digital Adoption Platforms that can make the Dynamics 365 implementation successful. 

Implementation is an ongoing process as the project team has to continuously improve the process and system add customizations and remove redundancies to achieve efficiency. It can only happen by planning consecutive releases over a long duration to create a refined version of your initial implementation.

9. Train the Employees

Training should be an integral part of the implementation strategy. Create training programs in the early stages of implementation planning and decide the training methods that would be required to enhance the skills of employees. 

It is often assumed that training programs are designed to post the implementation phase. However, doing so will delay returns from your D365 investment. 

Companies must prepare training programs while strategizing the implementation process. 

The designed training program cannot rely on only one single training method. You need several methods that can satisfy different users’ learning patterns. Every employee is different and so is their way of learning. So deploying training methods that can satisfy visual, auditory, reading, and kinesthetic learners is a necessity to make training programs successful. 

Relevant Read: Microsoft Dynamics Implementation Challenges

A Digital Adoption Platform allows you to create content that can address visual, reading, and kinesthetic learners’ needs. It can also hold content like PDFs, knowledge base links (reading format), walkthroughs (visual and kinesthetic), and videos (visual and auditory format) in its help deck which sits right on top of Microsoft Dynamics 365.  

Apty’s intuitive guidance simplifies Microsoft Dynamics for all your employees. It also acts as a repository of information that allows users to clarify their doubts without even leaving the platform. It reduces pressure on the support and IT teams so they can focus on higher priority issues.

These stages are crucial in ensuring a successful ERP rollout, and understanding each phase is vital for any organization embarking on this journey.

1. Project Planning and Preparation

2. Requirements Analysis and ERP Selection

3. Design and Development

4. Testing and Training

5. Deployment and Go-Live

6. Post-Implementation Review and Support

ERP Implementation Strategies

After laying out the critical stages of ERP implementation, it’s essential to focus on strategies to make the process more efficient and effective. The following strategies are instrumental in navigating the complexities of ERP implementation and ensuring its success.

1. Stakeholder Engagement and Communication

2. Customization vs. Standardization

3. Data Management

4. Change Management

5. Effective Project Management

6. User Training and Support

7. Testing and Quality Assurance

8. Phased Rollout

9. Post-Implementation Review

These strategies offer a comprehensive approach to ERP implementation, addressing the technical, organizational, and human factors contributing to such projects’ success or failure. By adhering to these strategies, organizations can significantly increase their chances of a successful ERP implementation.

Here are some noteworthy mentions of well-known ERP implementation strategies:

The selection of an ERP implementation methodology depends on various factors, including the organization’s size, the complexity of the business processes, resource availability, risk tolerance, and the criticality of the ERP system to daily operations. Each method has pros and cons, and the choice often involves a trade-off between risk, cost, and disruption to the business.

How DAPs Facilitate Seamless User Adoption of ERPs

Integrating Digital Adoption Platforms (DAPs) into ERP implementation strategies marks a pivotal shift in how enterprises approach user adoption. DAPs streamline and simplify the user experience, addressing one of the most significant hurdles in ERP projects: the steep learning curve associated with new systems.

A. Bridging the User Adoption Gap

DAPs serve as a bridge between complex ERP functionalities and user capabilities. They provide real-time, contextual guidance within the application, making it easier for users to understand and navigate the ERP system. This in-app assistance is tailored to the user’s role and tasks, ensuring relevance and efficiency.

B. Enhancing User Engagement and Competency

DAPs are designed to enhance user engagement through interactive walkthroughs, tooltips, and task lists that guide users step-by-step through processes. This hands-on approach accelerates the learning process, leading to quicker and more effective user competency in utilizing the ERP system.

C. Customized Learning Experiences

DAPs offer the flexibility to create customized learning experiences that match the specific needs of different user groups within an organization. This personalization is crucial in catering to the diverse roles and responsibilities that interact with the ERP system, ensuring that each user receives relevant and efficient training.

D. Reducing Resistance to Change

Change resistance is a common challenge in ERP implementations. DAPs mitigate this by providing a supportive and intuitive learning environment. This approach eases users’ transition, reduces anxiety and resistance, and fosters a more positive attitude towards the new system.

E. Analytics and Feedback for Continuous Improvement

DAPs come equipped with analytics capabilities, allowing organizations to track user performance and identify areas where users struggle. This feedback is invaluable for continuously improving the ERP system and the training materials, ensuring that the system evolves in line with user needs and preferences.

F. Aligning with Organizational Goals

Effective DAP implementation aligns closely with organizational goals and objectives. By improving user adoption rates, organizations can maximize the ROI of their ERP investment, ensuring that the system contributes significantly to operational efficiency and business growth.

Learn More: ERP Implementation Checklist: Planning for an Enterprise Implementation

5 To-do’s While Onboarding your Employees

Let’s have a look at the 5 steps that you can include as a part of your employee onboarding checklist:

1. Get paperwork ready beforehand

Before the new hire starts, set up all of the office equipment and programs needed to perform their role. Have them fill out the necessary paperwork ahead of time so that they can hit the ground running on their first day of work. 

Get all the paperwork ready before the employee’s joining date. Mention the basic details like roles and responsibilities in the organization, benefits entitled to the payrolls, agreements, etc.

2. Involve HR early on

Before onboarding can begin, you must first submit a job requisition paperwork to the human resources department for approval. Before a new employee can be formally hired, HR may need a completed background check and other required tests.

3. Organize a welcome session

The first thing you should do is set up a welcoming session for your new employee. A warm welcome will make the new employee feel at ease and appreciated by the firm. There are numerous ways to organize the welcome. Recording a welcome video, participating in group activities, and introducing the new member to their co-workers can make a big difference to them.

4. Schedule pivotal orientation events

Schedule a new hire orientation for the employee’s first day on the job. This will ease the process of signing documents and also help the new hire to learn about the company’s culture, see the organization chart, and see how different departments communicate.

5. Set clear expectations

You must set clear expectations and goals for the new employee so that they fully understand how to excel in their role. In addition, provide the new employee “how-to” guides or videos during the onboarding process that they can refer to whenever needed. This is pivotal in terms of efficiency in the long term.

How Long Should Employee Onboarding Last?

According to Gallup’s workplace report, up to half of all new hires don’t stay with a company longer than a year and a half, and it’s clear that poor retention can have significant financial implications. 

Three months is about the minimum time it takes to fully onboard a new employee. Businesses that extend the process through six months or the first year tend to see better retention rates and faster time-to-productivity for new hires. However, few companies extend their onboarding activities beyond the first week or month. 

While the intensity of the process may wane after the initial period, both the employer and the employee should have a full understanding that the onboarding process is still underway, even well after the employee has started.

New Employee Onboarding Checklist

The following is a sample checklist for employee onboarding:

Before the First Day:

First Week:

First Month:

Ongoing:

Use this employee onboarding process checklist as a simple guide to effectively onboard new employees and help them excel in their job roles. After the hiring process and onboarding is complete, make a conscious effort to check in regularly with the employee to ensure that their transition in their new role and work environment goes smoothly.

A New Way to Onboard Your New Employees

Technology systems are some of the most complex parts of the employee onboarding process. They are critical to business success, but complex programs and operations can be difficult for new employees to master quickly. This can result in frustration, errors, and slow productivity. 

Apty significantly cuts down on the time needed for employees to develop mastery, providing personalized dialogue boxes and in-application guidance as the need arises, new employees can quickly develop skill and confidence without needing to consult a manual or ask a co-worker for help. 

Employees can learn new software on the job in real-time – increasing their confidence, efficiency, and skill. Apty can help you reduce onboarding time and get your new employees up to speed quickly!

The Link Between Onboarding and Employee Retention

The most obvious benefit to a successful onboarding program is increased retention. Employees that are happy and well adjusted in their jobs are more likely to stay with their employer. Companies with an engaging onboarding program retained 91% of their first-year workers.

Improving your employee retention saves time and money but not having to search for a replacement. Companies spend weeks and thousands of dollars just trying to fill one position. HR experts estimate the organization costs of replacing an employee are one to three times the employee’s annual salary.

The solution is to make sure employees feel confident and comfortable in their jobs from Day 1 instead of just hoping things will work out.

Onboarding Improves Productivity

Not only does onboarding make employees more likely to stay, it also makes them better at their jobs. Employees who go through an onboarding program are nearly 2X as productive, according to research published by Glassdoor.

Onboarding eliminates confusion and confusion can kill your team’s productivity and your bottom line. Businesses in the United States and United Kingdom lose an estimated $37 billion each year from employees not understanding their jobs.

One of the main goals of an onboarding program is for employees to gain role clarity. Employees need to know both what is expected of them and how to use the company’s systems and technologies to meet those expectations.

Employees can’t be productive if they don’t know what to do or how to use your enterprise software. Onboarding makes sure employees have both the institutional knowledge and technical training to be successful.

Driving Revenue and Boosting Customer Satisfaction

The final two benefits of employee onboarding might be the biggest selling point – onboarding boosts both revenue and customer satisfaction. Research from the Aberdeen Group shows that great onboarding can lead to 60% year-over-year improvement in revenue and a 63% year-over-year in customer satisfaction.

An engaged and productive workforce will create better results. Onboarding equips employees to be better at their jobs. Happier and more confident employees lead to happier customers and better revenue. The process starts with your onboarding process. If onboarding at your company only consists of sitting with an HR manager for 30 minutes, you’ll need to consider in building out a full onboarding program.

Seeing the Benefits of Employee Onboarding

Realizing the benefits of an employee onboarding program will require investing time, staff and money to building an onboarding program. Onboarding is not just an HR activity. Department-level supervisors and managers should be involved in developing and executing your onboarding strategy. For more help in developing an onboarding strategy check out this resource – What Employees Want Out of Onboarding

The employee onboarding process should focus on reducing paperwork and increasing the employee engagement rate as it can boost the retention rate by 82% and productivity by 70%.

They say “The first impression is the best impression” is especially true when you are onboarding a new hire. You can potentially lose a great talent just because the proper process was not in place.

A scenario like this can be avoided by addressing the biggest employee onboarding challenges, and subsequently, proactively avoiding them.

Top Employee Onboarding Challenges

1. Information Bombardment on Day 1

It is human to feel a little nervous, overwhelmed or even ecstatic on Day 1 of a new job. It’s a new workplace, new colleagues, the culture is unfamiliar, you aren’t very sure of your exact role, who your peers are going to be – It’s the adult version of first day at school, which we will all agree is a feeling like no other!

This being the case, it is insensitive to expect employees to absorb and retain all the key information about their new job, the company, its culture and everything else in between on the very first day!

In a fast-moving organization, you could be tempted to bring your employee up to speed as soon as possible but this could overwhelm them and could pose as an onboarding challenge. A new employee has tons of documents to fill, loads of names to memorize, multiple applications to learn, and in some cases huge shoes to fill. Achieving all this in a day or even a week is not possible.

For starters, you can automate paperwork with an electronic solution as part of Digital Onboarding. Doing so will help you to focus on other important onboarding activities and guide employees to seamlessly fill the documentation without any manual errors. Not just that, the documents are stored in the cloud which eliminates the risk of misplacement.

Relevant Read: Employee Onboarding Questions that Apty helps you Answer

2. Lack of Role Clarity

One common onboarding challenges during onboarding is that most new hires have lack of clarity of their role.

They usually think that they signed up for some specific role but doing something else. The new employee might be in a dilemma and could be disappointed by the assigned role.

It is the job of HR to ensure that team leads or managers meet with the new employees to discuss this. The discussion should give clarity to the employee, it must help them to understand how their current role will boost their career.

Relevant Read: Employee Onboarding Process – HR’s Finishing Touch

3. Assuming the newly acquired skills will stay relevant forever

You hire great talent and provide them with all the necessary skills to excel in their role, and Bam! You assume they will perform incredibly well for the rest of their life and stay with the company forever, right?

Wrong.

Even the brightest talent goes through a knowledge drain and it is your responsibility to ensure continuous learning by enabling on-demand, micro, and virtual form of training to reinforce the initial training.

Regular training will help your employee to be engaged in their jobs, reduce the retention rate, and will encourage them to stay with the organization for a longer period. It always better to have a checklist of things to have by your side while onboarding a new employee as it will help you to avoid assumption and overcome the new hire onboarding challenges.

Relevant Read: The Important Employee Onboarding Checklist that HR should  follow

4. Right Onboarding Content for Right Roles

Onboarding flows should be tailored for specific job roles. Training everyone for everything is not judicious and is definitely an overkill.

For example, Joe is hired for sales. He should be trained on how the product that he is going to sell works. But he shouldn’t be trained to customize the product, it is the job of the Developer.

The same analogy applies to all the applications and processes for which the new employee will be trained. The Onboarding process should be relevant to the new employee and they shouldn’t feel overwhelmed.

Providing them with unnecessary information could suggest that the organization wants them to do other jobs as well and could lead to a lower employee retention rate.

Delve Deep: Best Practices of Employee Onboarding

5. Employees aren’t familiar with All the Applications

35 job critical applications are used by employees for over 1100 times in a day based on Pega Research.

Let me drop another bomb.

100% of the employees who participated in this research are humans.

When your workforce has to use so many applications, it becomes challenging to train employees to master all of them. And expecting them to know how to use them all instantly is unfair. Training and Onboarding the new employees on all the applications is practically impossible and is a waste of time, money, and effort.

It is ideal if the employees can be guided with relevant documents, videos, and on-demand Walkthroughs that can be accessed by them as and when required. It will reduce their dependency on HR, L&D, Managers, and colleagues as they can become self-sufficient.

Apty is a modern solution where each employee is contextually guided within the application with the help of walkthroughs and relevant resources. It reduces dependencies and help you overcome onboarding challenges.

2. Introduce to Co-Workers

The HR team members are the first point of contact that the employee has with the company and they must make the new employee feel comfortable on their first day. On the employee’s first day, introduce them to their new co-workers, whom they will have to interact with regularly.

Initiating conversations between them right from the new hire’s first day will speed things up the team’s communication process. Assign a mentor or a buddy who can show the new hire around and make them feel at ease during their initial days.  

Once you lay the foundation for good communication in the early stages, it will be easier for them to connect with the rest of the team.

3. Provide All Resources

Make sure that the employee has everything they need for their work to ensure smooth onboarding. Keep their work computer ready with all the software and tools that they will use.

Also, provide them with an onboarding kit with gifts from the company to welcome them – consider including practical, high-quality branded items like a stress ball to help new hires feel comfortable as they settle in.

Share the contact for IT and support teams so they can reach out to them in case they need assistance with the computer or software.

4. Introduce the Company’s Culture

On the employee’s first day, communicate the organization’s mission, vision, values, and goals and help them understand more about the organization. Help them get familiar with the organization’s culture in order to develop a strong connection with them.

There is no better time to communicate these values to an employee than during onboarding. When an employee sees value in the company’s culture, they will be more invested in the company’s goals and be more engaged at work.

5. Promote a Pleasant Work Environment

It is important to provide a warm and comfortable environment in order for the new hire to feel at ease in the organization. Arrange team lunches and other events to create a less formal environment where they can get to know the team members. Help them share their thoughts and opinions so the team understands the unique perspective the new hire brings to the table.

Onboarding is a complex task and it can be easy to forget a few steps in between. Keeping a new employee onboarding checklist handy helps you document all the tasks that need to be completed wit

6. Prepare an Onboarding Checklist

hout missing anything. 

Not only will a checklist streamline the onboarding process but the employee will also have a smooth experience and a great first impression of the company.

7. Provide Effective Training

Once the introductions are done, it is time to start training them. The training technique and tools must be chosen with careful consideration. If they are only involved in traditional classroom-style training, there is very less chance of it being effective n the long run.

These methods take up a lot of the employee’s time and they usually forget 70% of what they learn within a day. Not to mention that classroom training is not very costly, resource, or time effective for the organization. 

There are many other effective ways of training employees. Enabling self-learning is one of the most effective training techniques. Employees can get assistance with the software whenever they want, right on the platform, they are working on.

On-screen guidance and walkthroughs are also effective since they show employees how to perform tasks in the real world, enabling on-the-job training. A digital adoption platform combines all these features to deliver efficient and effective training to your employees.

8. Make It Remote Friendly

In the recent past, a majority of companies have their workforces working from home. It can get very difficult to onboard employees successfully into an organization and get them adjusted to the work culture when they are working remotely.

Leverage new technologies that make remote work and collaboration easier. Use video conferencing tools to conduct all meetings during onboarding and introduce them to all the software that they will need to use to work remotely.

A digital adoption platform is a perfect solution for onboarding employees to new software without anyone having to be physically present, on-site. It guides them step-by-step through software with the help of walkthroughs and tooltips.

9. Invest in the Employee’s Growth

From day 1, the employee must know that the organization is investing in the employee’s growth as well. Inform them that they will be provided with any training that empowers them to grow in their careers.

Employee development is a proven strategy for an organization’s continual growth, productivity, and ability to retain valuable employees.  

Upskilling and reskilling can help employees grow, benefiting both the organization and the employee. When employees with the right skillsets are encouraged to grow and take up bigger roles and responsibilities, they advance in their careers.

Show your employees the value that they can add to the company and present them with all the opportunities to learn and grow along with the organization.

10. Celebrate Milestones

It is common for the new employee to feel unsure about the quality of work and their contribution to the company.

The management must take the responsibility of appreciating the efforts of each employee, celebrating milestones that they have achieved, and providing feedback for their work. Using digital signage, companies can instantly showcase achievements or recognition messages across the office. These free digital signage templates can help managers create professional updates quickly.

Discuss the expectations the company has from them, regularly. This will motivate them to work towards a common goal that benefits them as well as the company.

11. Review and Improve

Without regular reviews and checks on your onboarding process, it is likely to fall apart. Establish monthly and yearly goals for the employee to achieve. It is also important to have monthly check-ins during the first 6 months of the new hire to understand their progress at their job and their role. Be honest with feedback, regardless of what it is but make sure to encourage them as much as possible.  

Assess the growth the new hires have achieved during the whole process and use this data along with their feedback to remove friction points in the process. HR managers can also use Apty to measure how well employees have mastered software and processes to identify roadblocks and fix them.

*Source: Glassdoor

1) Learn your customers’ behaviors and their specific needs

The first step to a successful onboarding process is determining why’ customers are looking for your product, and then finding a way to fulfill this particular need. Utilize surveys and other research tools to determine your users’ primary pain point and be sure to highlight how your application solves that problem during their onboarding.

2) Leverage multiple touchpoints

In order to increase user interaction and retention, you need to put in place multiple channels of communication . Obviously, in-application messaging will play a vital role in your onboarding strategy, but you should consider what other user onboarding channels to use outside of the application including:

3) Make the Aha! moment obvious

The ‘Aha moment’ is when the customer starts to comprehend the value of your software. Don’t wait to wow them. Your onboarding process should get them to the Aha! moment as quickly as possible. Complicated sign-up forms or a painful login experience create a barrier between your new user and their Aha moment. Create an onboarding experience that seamlessly guides them and allows them to discover the value of what your platform does. Onboarding isn’t about telling someone why they’ll love your software. It’s about showing them. During the onboarding, new users should think, ‘Wow this is going to save me so much time,” or “this is so much easier,” or whatever the unique value your software adds.

4) Customize each user’s experience

Not every user has the same needs. Don’t waste someone’s time onboarding them to a feature they’ll never use. Create unique onboarding experiences that are custom-tailored by different user types.

5) Give a personal touch

To encourage long-term commitment, try developing personal rapport with your users. Customers want their products to be relatable. You can achieve this by adding some funny lines or comments in your chats and messaging that give your onboarding sequence some personality.

6) Establish metrics to measure your success

It’s important to measure how users are interacting with your software and your onboarding sequence. Stats to track include:

7) Remind people when they haven’t finished onboarding

So if you’re following tip 6 and you’re tracking who hasn’t completed onboarding, leverage that data to remind people to finish the process. Setup automated alerts that nudge people to complete their onboarding.

8) Break onboarding down into bite-sized chunks

Don’t overwhelm your users with a 20-item checklist the first time they log in. Create some milestones as a part of your onboarding sequences so that users feel like they’re making progress. Break down onboarding into chunks and wait to introduce the next journey until after users complete the first.

9) Test and revamp your onboarding as needed

You’ll need to recruit some volunteers to test your onboarding process. Make tweaks based on their feedback and the stats you have from tracking the process. Test the tweaks and repeat the process again.

10) Onboard existing users to new features

Onboarding is not a once and done process. It’s for more than just new users. When you roll out new features and updates, you’ll need to make a plan to onboard your existing users to the new features. The same principles apply to onboarding people to new features. Make sure your onboarding illustrates the value of how the new feature makes a task easier or saves them time.

How you onboard users could make or break your software. Make sure you’re setting your application and your users up for success. Be sure to subscribe to our blog for more tips on SaaS onboarding.

Image Source: Photo by Brad Javernick

Leveraging the right User Onboarding techniques based on your specific business requirements can prove to be extremely beneficial for enterprises. However, the biggest challenge for most companies is the lack of awareness about the different User Onboarding techniques and their classifications.

In this article, we will be discussing the top 10 types of User Onboarding techniques, so you can make an informed decision on which one works best for you.

Before jumping into different types of User Onboarding tools, let us understand few basic questions like,

What is User Onboarding and Why it’s important?

It is a process of providing new users with necessary product knowledge and skills to help understand the principles of how your product works and why it should be a part of their workflow.

User onboarding is like a guided tour. You lead users through a series of simple tasks to reveal the benefits of your software.

Why User Onboarding tool is important?

User Onboarding tools make your users experience “Aha moment!” as soon as possible. It provides a better User Engagement, User Experience (UX), and makes your onboarding process smooth and effective.

According to Forbes, one disengaged user at the average salary level will cost you almost $16,000 per year. This shows the necessity of User Engagement and that in turn explains the importance of User onboarding tools.

The ideal User Onboarding tool should help you with:

Also, people need to know,

We have addressed these questions in our blog, The Definitive Guide For User Onboarding. Here we are going to concentrate more on User Onboarding tools.

With that in mind, we’ve compiled a list of the top 10 classifications of User Onboarding techniques in which we have listed around 22 User Onboarding to consider for improving your User Onboarding experience:

The Top 10 User Onboarding Tools Classifications

Many user onboarding tools fall under the mentioned categories. Let’s have a look at what are those User Onboarding software.

1. User Onboarding tools – through Social Login

While technically not a part of onboarding, how users login can impact their adoption. If you make it easier to log in, they’re more likely to use the product and start your onboarding sequence. Consider adding a single sign-on or social login with tools like this:

Auth0:

Auth0 is an enterprise-grade universal authentication and authorization platform both for web and mobile applications, it is known for its capability to reduce friction in the login experience.

With Auth0, an effective User Onboarding tool, you will not only reduce the time required by users to complete the registration process with Single Sign-On (SSO) solutions but also securely capture user’s data and prevent malicious logins.

According to cxl.com, 77% of users believe social login is a good registration solution to increase user engagement.

Auth0 – Less Friction with Single Sign-On

Auth0, a freemium model-based tool that helps in onboarding your users immediately and personalizes their experience across different platforms by leveraging social login through Google, Twitter, and Facebook.

Key benefits of Auth0:

Some challenges of Auth0:

LoginRadius

LoginRadius is a cloud-based Customer Identity and Access Management platform (CIAM) that is not only simplified, customizable, and secure but also integrates it with marketing tools.

LoginRadius offers a fully customizable user experience (UX) and user interface (UI) that streamlines the registration process, login time, and password recovery.

LoginRadius is available for both web and mobile applications. It provides multiple login options from social media channels and a lot more options depending on the registration type needed, making it easier for users to sign up or sign in while enabling businesses to seamlessly create social post campaigns that connect authentication with user engagement.

LoginRadius – Seamless secured signup

It saves significant time by making login quick also collects customer data through email-based registration and social profile data.

Key Benefits of LoginRadius:

Some challenges of LoginRadius:

2. User Onboarding tools – Email tools

Mailchimp

Mailchimp is one of the most popular email service providers (ESP) used to send personalized emails to make it easy to connect with the right people at the right time. Key features are their templates, automation, and analytics.

For organizations operating at a larger scale, platforms like Marketo email marketing build on similar foundations with advanced lifecycle automation, deeper segmentation logic, and revenue-focused analytics enabling teams to coordinate more complex, data-driven engagement strategies across longer customer journeys.

Mailchimp – Create, automate, and monitor emails

Key Benefits of Mailchimp:

Some Challenges of Mailchimp:

Customer.io unique and notable feature is to send push notifications and SMS messages to the prospects and also collect real-time data of them.

Customer.io

Customer.io – Trigger-based custom emails

With a tool like Customer.io, you can deliver the right email at the right time to the right customer also you can segment your customers depending on real-time events and send personalized custom emails after observing what they do or don’t do during User Onboarding experience.

Key Benefits of Customer.io:

Some Challenges of Customer.io:

3. User Onboarding tools with in-app guidance (Product tours)

Tour My App

Tour My App creates code less in-application tutorials that help to onboard new users, highlight features in your application, and also reflect your value proposition faster and easier. It increases employee engagement through interactive in-app guided tours.

Tour My App – Customization made simple

Tour My App can be easily customized and the app is very user-friendly. Built-in Analytics and codeless creation of tutorials are the highlights features.

Key Benefits of Tour My App:

Some Challenges of Tour My App:

Apty

Apty is the next-gen modern Digital Adoption Platform that makes the onboarding process simpler and easier. Apty, one of the best User Onboarding tools, helps in many ways such as creates walkthroughs and content, automates mundane tasks, analytical insights, on-screen guidance, tooltips, announcements and many more.

To create credibility, look out the G2 crowd review, the best software review platform in the market.

Apty is ranking as the Highest rated digital adoption platform software in the G2 crowd with a score of 93/100. Here is a snippet from G2 Crowd.

Apty – Digital Adoption is done the right way

If you need something robust that not only makes the onboarding process faster but also has added advantages then you must have Apty is in the priority list.

Key Benefits of Apty:

Some Challenges of Apty:

Nickelled

Nickelled, a User Onboarding walkthrough making solution, helps to create easy step-by-step guides that can be added to any website without any code integration- creating code-free walkthroughs in no time to onboard your users quickly and effectively. The application lets website owners train users on new updates, online tools, and work processes.

Nickelled- Supportive onboarding solution

There aren’t many reviews available for Nickelled, but most reviews stated that Nickelled is very easy to use and they do provide good customer support and the tool is worth buying.

Key Benefits of Nickelled:

Some Challenges of Nickelled:

4. User Onboarding tools – with chat support

LiveChat

LiveChat is a chat platform that can be used to interact with visitors on your website. It is an online customer service software that allows you to communicate in real-time with visitors to your Web site via instant messaging. LiveChat is packed with features that are designed to boost your customer’s satisfaction.

LiveChat – Unlock the data behind the problems

LiveChat helps to monitor your onboarding process and identify roadblocks of customers with the support of LiveChat analytics.

Key Benefits of Livechat:

Some Challenges of Livechat:

Olark

Olark is easy-to-use live chat software that helps to track your website visitors and lets you talk to customers on your website. It also gives information in real-time on your user behavior during the onboarding process. Olark helps to share a personal experience which is a way to engage users and avoid unwanted friction during the process of User Onboarding.

Olark – Make your business human

Olark allows customization that gives you complete control of the integration. Olark can help you track prospects, create live chat automation, drive sales, increase conversions, and provide great customer support.

Key Benefits of Olark:

Some Challenges of Olark:

5. User Onboarding tools – Support & Help

Zendesk

Zendesk is a knowledge base tool that quickens the User Onboarding process by allowing you to create an online help center where customers can access FAQs, community-curated solutions and step-by-step articles.

Zendesk – Build with, on, and beyond

Highlighting features of Zendesk,

Zendesk is a customer service software tool that helps your users to help themselves by enabling the users to access the information they need to solve their issues.

Key Benefits of Zendesk:

Some Challenges of Zendesk:

Help Scout

Help Scout is a cloud-based help desk solution that allows you to empower human driving and customizable live chat and email support with an array of tools that helps consistently in supporting your users.

Help Scout helps in humanizing chat support that will help your business to build good relationships with your customers and drive more interactions and engagement.

Help Scout – Let user serve themselves

Help Scout helps in the User Onboarding process by automatically creating a customer support ticket for any user who has an issue during onboarding and beyond which is a notable feature.

Key Benefits of Help Scout:

Some Challenges of Help Scout:

Freshdesk

Freshdesk is a cloud-based customer support software that allows businesses to effectively manage their customer care and support function. The primary purpose of the tool is to implement chat support in User Onboarding processes and track of all conversations.

Freshdesk – Have a responsive chat

Freshdesk, a ticketing software or a helpdesk tool is a perfect fit for small to medium-size enterprises that require an easily manageable helpdesk and can be effectively used for solving customer support tickets. It helps enterprises to track and resolve user queries, or any other form of enquiry from customers.

Key Benefits of Freshdesk:

Some Challenges of Freshdesk:

6. User Onboarding tools – Survey:

SurveyMonkey

A survey is the best way to understand whether your User Onboarding and training program is moving in the right or desired way. SurveyMonkey is the world’s leading survey platform that helps to create surveys that range from simple easy polls to in-depth market research.

SurveyMonkey – Power to drive curiosity

It’s a powerful cloud-based software as a service tool that allows you to create and run professional online surveys.

Key Benefits of Survey Monkey:

Some Challenges of Survey Monkey:

Typeform

Typeform survey designs are minimal and memorable. Paying attention to your users should always be a high priority, but getting proper user feedback is time-consuming and expensive, there comes the need of Typeform.

Typeform – Make things a little more human

Typeform allows you to do things like business forms, product feedback, surveys, quizzes, landing page, contests, payment forms and many more.

Key Benefits of Typeform:

Some Challenges of Typeform:

Zoho Survey

Zoho Survey is an online survey platform that addresses User Onboarding survey needs and requirements. It is a satisfactory tool for organizations that needs to conduct surveys in customer satisfaction, marketing, finance, education, human resources, research and other business areas with a wide range of pre-built survey templates.

Zoho Survey – Survey made simple

Zoho Survey makes survey creation simple and administration easy and painless. Zoho Survey is optimized for mobile devices and allows you to track user engagement actively. Zoho Survey’s real-time reporting and analytics tool is powerful that helps you to organize your surveys effectively.

Key Benefits of Zoho Survey:

Some Challenges of Zoho Survey:

7. User Onboarding tools – Analytics and Data Collection

Mixpanel

Mixpanel is a behavioral and product user experience tracking tool. Mixpanel’s user interface is very simple and engaging for both mobile and web applications.

Mixpanel allows you to visualize and segment your data, reports, analytics, and monitor your User Onboarding KPIs. In the case of User Onboarding, Mixpanel helps you to understand your user behavior better before taking action and making any important decisions.

Similarly, social media tools can help track user interactions across social platforms, giving additional insights into user behavior and engagement beyond the product environment.

Mixpanel – Timely assistant optimizing every touchpoint

Mixpanel is a popular funnel analytics tool that provides visibility of how effectively you retain your users post-hiring. They allow you to track and monitor the progress of the User Onboarding process and helps to identify the touchpoints where the individual users need assistance and engagement.

Key Benefits of Mixpanel:

Some Challenges of Mixpanel:

Amplitude

The Amplitude platform helps you to build better in-app experiences and improve your User Onboarding. Amplitude is a web and mobile analytics solution that improves retention by understanding the user journey and patterns. Amplitude analytics and dashboard allow you to monitor your product usage data and statistics in real-time, letting you know a to z about your app.

Amplitude’s notable features,

Amplitude – Behavioral targeting made simple

Amplitude released a tool called Amplitude Growth Engine, which helps you to learn and increase the winning hypothesis. Amplitude personalizes user experiences by understanding their actual behavior and building the segments tailored to your users. Amplitude helps enterprises target potential clients and increase revenue.

Key Benefits of Amplitude:

Some Challenges of  Amplitude:

8. User Onboarding tools  – A/B Testing Software

Optimizely

Optimizely is a customer experience optimization platform that leverages A/B testing, where two versions of a web page can be compared and perform multivariate testing.

Optimizely’s A/B testing methods help enterprises to identify better User Onboarding methods, most effective CTA’s and also helps in taking correct decisions during tough times.

Optimizely — Data-driven decision

Features of Optimizely,

With Optimizely, an enterprise-grade A/B testing tool allows you to conduct multi-page experiments without coding. You can customize and control the experiment in your desired way, in the end, Optimizely provides you in-depth insights in the form of statistics, graphs, and analytics.

Key Benefits of Optimizely:

Some Challenges of Optimizely:

Google Optimize

Google Optimize is personalization and also an A/B testing platform. The unique and notable feature of Google Optimize is its in-depth integration with Google Analytics. This integration allows you to perform highly advanced targeting and conversion tracking.

Google Optimize – A Dynamic product by Google

Key Benefits of Google Optimize:

Some Challenges of Google Optimize:

9. User Onboarding tools – Visual Media tools:

Wistia

Wistia is a video software company that provides professional video-hosting services for businesses. Wistia is a trusted platform to create and host video tutorials to onboard your users quickly by making them understand and adopt your product in no time.

Wistia –Feel the power of personalization

Key Benefits of Wistia:

Some Challenges of  Wistia:

10. User Onboarding tools  – User Experience (UX) Journey

Hotjar

Hotjar is powerful behavior analytics and user feedback platform that allows you to understand the behavior and voice of your website users and get their feedback.

Hotjar – Visualize user behavior

Hotjar provides you the ‘big picture’ by combining heatmaps, conversion funnels and session recordings and offers you invaluable insights such as

Key Benefits of Hotjar:

Some Challenges of Hotjar:

FullStory

FullStory is a web-based digital intelligence system that helps you to optimize your user experience within the application. It enables you to track and monitor each client’s activity.

FullStory – Tackles point of friction

FullStory captures all page views and analyze heatmaps, and also track every clicks users make on your site.

Key Benefits of Fullstory:

Some Challenges of Fullstory:

Phew!!!

If you have reached here, I am sure you are a voracious reader. Kudos on that!

Fortunately or unfortunately, there are thousands of tools that fall under the spectrum of “tools helping in User Onboarding.” We have covered around 15+ tools here, selecting just one solution completely depends on what pain point you are trying to solve and the best tool that fits your requirement.

For example, if your objective is to not only faster User Onboarding process but also looking for feature adoption, and product analytics, the answer is a digital adoption platform like Apty.

Why is User Onboarding Important?

Using onboarding is the key to improving your product adoption. If people don’t use your software, they won’t renew their subscription. Thus onboarding and adoption are the keys to decreasing or preventing churn.

When you sell a product that people don’t know how to use, you have to offer some onboarding for customers to be successful. When people buy a car, most of them already know how to drive because they learned using someone else’s car or previously owned a vehicle themselves.

For SaaS products, no one has used your product before buying it, so you have to teach them how to use it and get the value out of it. For more tips on the importance of driving product adoption through onboarding, check out our detailed guide on product adoption for SaaS products.

What is SaaS Onboarding Software?

SaaS onboarding software is a part of a growing solutions category called digital adoption platforms. Individual features may vary, but in general, a DAP provides on-screen guidance, user communication tools, and analytics. DAPs serve two main markets: enterprises and SaaS products. Companies will use a DAP to help with the onboarding and implementation of enterprise applications like an ERP, CRM, or HCM system. SaaS products use a DAP primarily for user onboarding and product adoption.

Read More:- Walkthrough Software: Why You Need It and How Interactive Walkthroughs Help Users

Top SaaS Onboarding Software Solutions in 2026

To determine the best SaaS onboarding software, you’ll find it helpful to examine user reviews and ratings. As the leading software review site, G2 can offer valuable insights on which platforms could work best for you.

As of July 2020, the Highest-rated Digital Adoption Platforms or SaaS Onboarding Tools are:

SaaS Customer Onboarding Software Comparison

As we’ve already mentioned, Digital Adoption Platforms tend to focus on either enterprise software or SaaS products. Some platforms work for both. We’ve categorized the top platforms in the table below:

You’ll want to pick a SaaS customer onboarding tool that focuses on SaaS products or both SaaS and enterprises. You’ll also want to ask about pricing options. Frequently as startups, SaaS companies are looking for the best bargain.

Make sure you invest in a platform that’s both affordable and feature-rich. Customer onboarding is one of the most important functions for a SaaS product. Don’t skimp on your onboarding tool. You need to deliver the best user experience possible.

Feature to Look for in SaaS Onboarding Software

There are several factors to consider when choosing the right onboarding tool to use in conjunction with your SaaS product. Things like functionality, ease of use, and cost-effectiveness are naturally some of the most sought after features.

Before you decide, let’s take a look at some of the features you should be sure to consider when doing your SaaS user onboarding tool research.

A. Easily Accessible Guides

You never know when your users will have questions or need guidance. Having an onboarding tool that implements easily accessible guides will save time and cut costs. These guides should be available 24/7, making it easy for users to find solutions at any time of the day. Extended availability allows for continued work and the ability for users to expand their knowledge base continually.

B. Segmentation

Not all roles are equal when it comes to onboarding. Users have different needs. Segmentation by a user’s native language or their user role can dictate what content they see and the method in which it is delivered to them. Finding an onboarding tool that allows for segmentation will give users a better experience while also enhancing their overall onboarding outcomes.

C. Custom Walkthroughs And Product Tours

SaaS onboarding software with a code-free editor will allow for easy content creation and streamlined walkthroughs and product tours. Having a software with this capability will significantly cut costs without cutting quality. Look for an easy code-free editor so you can create and publish new tours and walkthroughs in a matter of minutes. Teams can pair walkthroughs with AI video summaries to reinforce product tours using real demo or webinar content.

Read More:- Tips for Using Product Tours to Reveal Your ‘Aha Moment’

D. Advanced Analytics

Perhaps one of the most effective tools within onboarding software is advanced analytics. Having the ability to track and measure how people are using your onboarding content will give you the insight necessary to optimize your process. These analytics hold the power to pinpoint weak areas and offer solutions to improve user engagement.

E. Communication Capabilities

Open lines of communication are crucial to success. When choosing onboarding tools, look for options that allow for in-app communication with users. This feature will let you remind users to complete the onboarding process as well as solicit their feedback regarding content. With this feature, you’ll be able to help keep users on track while also building rapport and generating valuable first-hand feedback to improve the user experience.

What is the Best SaaS Onboarding Software?

When you evaluate the features and user ratings, Apty comes out on top as the best SaaS onboarding software.

Apty outranks the competition by:

What our SaaS Clients Have to Say:

“Apty helps us empower our Customers”

“Apty is an intuitive and robust Digital Adoption platform with very powerful capabilities. Our customers have been able to successfully navigate through and use our product without raising support tickets or making frantic calls to us for help. This is a dream tool for every SaaS product that wishes to empower their customers.” – Recent G2 Review

What are the Benefits of Apty’s SaaS Onboarding Software?

User onboarding is time-consuming and expensive. Companies have to devote resources to individual training and onboarding sessions or invest heavily in video and support content development. Apty allows companies to significantly reduce costs by using on-screen guidance and guided product tours to get users up and running quickly.

To learn more about reducing the time and money you spend on creating onboarding and support content, check out this blog post on using the COPE method for developing content with Apty. The blog post shows how Apty helps learning and development teams create content quickly to train new employees on enterprise software.

Still, the same principles apply to producing content for new SaaS customers.

In addition to cost savings, Apty also helps SaaS companies provide a better user experience. Apty is available 24/7, so users can start their onboarding on their schedule. With Apty, customers can begin using new software on the first day without any additional training.

By accelerating the onboarding process, Apty helps your users recognize the value of your application sooner and decreases the chance they’ll cancel or stop using the product.

Understand Your Options for SaaS Onboarding Tools

When it comes to choosing an onboarding tool for your SaaS products, be sure to do your due diligence, and fully understand your options. A thorough and engaging onboarding experience will have more significant long-term effects that can decrease churn and increase user engagement and customer satisfaction.

Investing in software that is a good fit for users is critical to long-term success for both the user and your SaaS product.

How to Create the Best User Onboarding Experience? What are the Tips to Follow?

Here’re the 10 tips to create smooth & effective User Onboarding Experience:

1. Be simple and contextual:

The mantra in providing the best User Onboarding experience is to keep it simple.

Create the content by putting yourself in the shoes of your end-users. Introduce your product and explain to users how they add value to them.

Ask yourself…

All these questions help you in understanding your end-users and to provide a smooth User Onboarding Experience.

2. Give a good head start:

Initial experience matters a lot. Make your first impression the best to have a smooth User Onboarding experience. Don’t dump too much information right from the get go. Provide the most important information that helps your users to achieve their primary goals.

Try to minimize the number of steps wherever possible and keep your Onboarding process short.

For example, let us see how Quora onboarding happens,

Since there are only a few steps involved, Quora users feel very comfortable and engaged.

But SaaS companies might have complex products wherein users must go through many steps to understand the product. In that case, SaaS companies must give a good head start and make their users get what they want as early as possible.

3. Provide appealing Welcome messages:

Welcome messages are the User Interface (UI) element that visually separates your User Onboarding experience from the products’ interface itself.

Welcome messages are like a transparent layer that enables your users to peek into the main application. They not only motivate individuals to complete their onboarding but also keeps an eye towards their end goals.

There are full-screen takeover messages, which coves your users’ entire screen and make them focus on the message. This can be disruptive in some instances, can be used sparingly.

How to create Appealing Welcome messages?

4. Create value for the user:

The most important element in providing the best User Onboarding experience is creating value for your users.

First, remember your core value proposition and communicate that to your users. During the SaaS onboarding process, tell your users what’s in it for them & why your product or application is the best. Show them how they can meet their needs with your product at the earliest.

In the introduction phase of the User Onboarding process, they can learn highly essential features. It is good to let your end-users understand the significant features at the initial stage and learn the extras as & when required.

Ways to create value:

5. Put your users in driver’s seat:

Let your users have control over the SaaS onboarding flow. Though it might sound strange, giving your end-users the liberty to skip some steps in the User Onboarding process engages them more.

The reason is simple. Not every user has the desire to follow the entire Onboarding process. Some individuals prefer exploring it by themselves rather than reading the information you provide.

For example, instead of going against the tide and forcing someone to learn, give them the option to skip certain steps. By doing this, you can get to know which step most of your users skip.

Now, if you find that a particular step creating confusion among users consider replacing it. Else, you can go ahead and start making engaging content to attract end-users.

6. Use Progress bars:

Progress bars help a lot in providing a great User Onboarding experience.A Progress bar acts as a visual indicator that tells you how far along you’ve come and assures you that you are on the right track can put anyone at ease.

Many SaaS companies use progress bars in their User Interface to engage end-users and to complete the onboarding process sooner. A progress bar also helps in reminding users that they haven’t completed the given task yet.

Also, you can start the progress bar at 20 or 30%, this indirectly motivates your end-users to feel like they have accomplished something.

For example, LinkedIn does this job perfectly.

LinkedIn progress bars clearly show how strong your profile is as you continue updating it. This progress bar helps you complete your profile step-by-step and keeps you engaged throughout the process. It also breaks down complex tasks into simpler ones, making the optimization process easier. For a deeper understanding of how to enhance your LinkedIn workflow, you can also explore this HubSpot LinkedIn integration guide to connect your tools and improve overall efficiency.

Used effectively, progress bars can provide a smooth User Onboarding experience. You can also use some other checklists to engage your users but make sure you leverage something like this to increase user engagement.

7. Set Objectives and Target Metrics:

Each step in the User Onboarding journey must focus on Value Creation, User engagement, and Product Adoption. To achieve smooth User Onboarding experience clearly define objectives, key metrics, and targets. Only if you have clear objectives defined, you can achieve success or desirable outcomes.

How does this help in providing smooth UX onboarding?

Once goals and metrics are set, communicate to your users and show them how their contribution will have an impact.

Frame your onboarding process based on your SaaS goals. Before rolling out the onboarding process, do A/B testing using the best ab testing tools. Try different approaches or processes and make sure you create customized UX for different user personas to meet their specific needs.

8. Focus on Individual Personas:

Persona-based User onboarding is the need of the hour. It helps your end-users have a great product experience with higher User Engagement.

For example, some of your new users might have a basic idea of what they need to do with your application or product. So, you need not waste your time in explaining things from scratch.

To avoid such situations, you can have different onboarding options based on personas wherein each one has a unique course of action.

Alternatively, you can create persona-based User Onboarding with the Digital Adoption Platform like Apty.

9. Provide Product Tour:

With the help of a Product Tour, you can show your users instead of telling them what they should do. The Product tour walks your users throughout the product and helps to create their moment of value at the earliest.

Product tours or walkthroughs pave way for smooth User Onboarding experience. It is like an experienced guide sitting with you and guiding you on the right path. Users feel very comfortable as they can get hands-on experience with your product.

Note:- A Digital Adoption Platform like Apty is a powerful walkthrough software which helps to create codeless workflows in a few simple steps. Also, Apty helps in User Onboarding, Product Adoption, and more.

10. Be consistent and predictable:

From start to end, you must make keep track of your product consistency. You must be consistent in the

In short, be consistent in everything that users experience on your product.

Being consistent in your onboarding process will make your product’s navigation predictable to your end-users. This gives your end-users a clear picture of what kind of User onboarding experience they are about to get.

The 10 tips that we discussed above will help you to provide a great User Onboarding experience to your product’s users. Irrespective of the complexity of your SaaS product, you can leverage the Digital Adoption Platform to create smooth UX and UI to your end-users.

If you are actively looking for a tool, you must definitely try Apty.

Change Management in Healthcare organizations is challenging and even more so since the pandemic with the industry is changing at a rapid pace.

Enduring change is not about being indifferent, or just participating in it, it is much more than that. It is about planning the strategies, implementing the operations, and managing the complexity of the process.

The only way to survive in this environment is to accept, change, adapt, and evolve. Most of the change management efforts fail because of poor planning, implementation, lack of system compatibility, integration, and poor process design.

In this guide, we will discuss what is change management in healthcare and what method can be used to implement it within the organization. We also delve deep to understand how to manage the change efficiently within the healthcare industry.

What is change management in healthcare?

Change management in healthcare is the process of enabling people through innovation and a new way of thinking. It helps to yield new practices and improve the care delivery models.

The aim is to reduce strain on the healthcare infrastructure and professionals while providing a reliable healthcare facility to the patients.

Implementing change management in healthcare using Kotter 8-step model

To create change management strategies in healthcare organization need some kind of change management model and according to us, the Kotter-8 step model is the right fit to get started.

Relevant Read: Kotter-8-step-model- a guide to change management

How to Manage Change in Healthcare?

1. Effectively communicating the change

Most of the change management efforts fail because of poor communication. In an organization when there are multiple stakeholders, it is important to set the right expectations by utilizing all the necessary communication channels from the very beginning.

Whether it is the C-level executive, a mid-level Manager or a Nurse each one of them must understand the role that they will play during the change process.

But that is only possible if you get buy-in across the organization and it can be achieved when people realize the value they will create and the benefit they can reap out of such efforts.

Making people understand the importance of change can be tricky; So, it is necessary to take their opinion wherever possible because eventually, it is the employees who will ensure the success of the change initiatives.

Usually, organizations use emails as the primary channel of communication but unfortunately, the average open rate in the Healthcare sector is 21.72% and that could act as the biggest change management challenge. So the best way forward would be to use a platform that is accessed by your employees all the time while they do their job.

In this case, you can create a pop-up or notification within the application that your employee utilizes. From there you can either launch a video or a webpage to inform about the process and you can do it on a weekly basis by pushing a new video each week. This way your employees will be on the same page as you.

You can also launch a survey via these pop-ups just to understand the effect of the change on your employees. It will help you track the progress and resolve any problem during the change process. A communication channel like this is called in-app announcements which ensure that nothing is left to chance.

Here is an article on different types of Change Management Templates that can be used to ensure success.

2. Creating an Integrated Experience

In the past few years, many industries have started focusing on creating a unified experience for both employees and consumers. The Healthcare sector should also follow suit.

Consumers want to see their health status and the availability of data at their fingertips. They want access to key indicators at all times.

They can utilize the latest technologies like the Apple watch which acts as a health band. Gadgets like these help people to keep tabs on their health and analyze important health indicators.

On the other hand, healthcare employees want to access fewer applications and desire a seamless transition from one application to another. They want all the data of their patients, workforce, and inventory in a single hub which could enable them to see the overall trend and make an informed decision.

To support this shift toward a more unified, data-driven healthcare environment, many organizations are now exploring the use of a virtual healthcare assistant< . These AI-powered tools help manage patient interactions, appointment scheduling , and follow-up care – freeing up time for staff and enhancing the overall patient experience. Their integration can also smooth transitions during digital change initiatives by automating routine workflows and reducing administrative burden.

3. Enabling Digital Adoption During Change

Since the pandemic, many healthcare professionals have had to adopt the new way of doing things, manage resources efficiently, form new processes, and optimize existing ones to make the most of what they have.

Healthcare workforce had to grow rapidly to execute administrative tasks to support the doctors and other frontline workers. Applications such as medical database software, medical diagnosis software, e-prescribing software, and medical equipment management software were widely utilized to keep track of patients, maintain resources, and provide the patients with an actionable solution.

Handling a variety of applications like these could be tricky even for a veteran and it becomes even more complicated especially for a new employee.

The best solution would be to train the workforce on these applications but when you are running against time relying on traditional training means could be time-consuming and may not be an ideal solution considering the time constraints.

In such scenarios solutions like Digital Adoption Platform can help an organization to train your employees on any web-based application in a matter of a few hours.

Even if they forget or don’t know how to utilize an application they can rely on the Digital Adoption Platform as it guides the employee from one step to the other seamlessly. Further, it has cross-platform support that can guide your employee from one application to the other and eventually help them to accomplish their tasks.

Conclusion

Driving change is not an easy task, it is complex, dynamic, unexpected, and above all challenging.  To cope with it you have to strategize, communicate, train, execute, and above all be prepared for the unprepared changes that will happen during the process.

Most of the change efforts fail because of poor digital adoption and it leads to low process completion or execution of tasks which eventually results in failed change initiatives.

This piece of the puzzle can be solved by using a Digital Adoption Platform like Apty which will help you to utilize any application to its fullest and empower your employees to accomplish all the tasks.

Having a Change Management plan template is necessary to carry out change initiatives seamlessly at an organization. Change is a complicated process that is influenced by several factors. Having a well-defined change management plan template by your side can smoothen the process and unburden your management teams.

Change management plans must take into consideration, an organization’s processes, communication protocol, training method, and impact analysis, success metrics, and more. Having a well-designed template will organize all your ideas and will act as a log for all the decisions and discussions.

These templates or blueprints help you ensure that everything is in order despite the chaos that change typically causes. Each organization has different needs but the basic approach usually remains the same.

In this article, we will discuss factors you must consider while creating a template for your organization.

What is the Change Management Plan Template?

A change management plan template helps organizations manage the process effectively throughout the change lifecycle and act as a decision log to keep the efforts on track.

A good change management template must be iterative and must learn from the past and to improves the change process. It takes a disciplined approach to adhere to the template. Each template is unique and we will explore them all in this blog post.

5 Types of Change Management Plan Template

1. Change Management Stakeholder Plan Template

Identifying what the stakeholders will do and how they will participate during the change is key. This will help you to realize who will be your champion, advocate, driver, and participant.

Based on this, you will be able to categorize at what level each stakeholder will be engaged and plan accordingly.

Some crucial questions you will need to address are:

The answers to these questions will give you an overview of the people involved in the process and this insight will help you create a basic change Management stakeholder plan template. Categorize the information based on the following

2. Change Management Communication Plan Template

People generally have a limited capacity to absorb information and since organizational change is a long process, communicating the goals and objectives behind your initiatives is crucial for your success. It is also important because, eventually, it will be your employees who are going to handle change and make it a success.

This change management communication plan template will help you overcome resistance to change and keep track of all the information that has been passed to the employees.

This is how you should design the communication template:

Type of meeting:- Decide whether the meeting will address a new topic or an update on an old one. Specify if it will be one-on-one, team-wide, or company-wide.

The topic of discussion:- Decide the topic of discussion and if it is related to people, business processes, or software

Purpose of meeting:- This helps stakeholders realize the importance of the meeting and acts as a reference point for future needs. The purpose of a meeting can be any of the following:

It is important to make the stakeholders realize the importance of the meeting and it acts as a reference point for future purposes.

3. Change Management Analysis Template

Any organization needs a change management template for analysis to track change at each juncture, phase, and process. During the change cycle, a number of decisions are made based on the challenges encountered by the team.

Usually, a deviation from the designed plan takes place due to hurdles faced during the execution stage. All this affects the overall project scope which can be tackled if you have an analysis template.

Here are the points that an analysis template includes:

4. Change Management Risk Assessment Template

The purpose of having a risk assessment template is to avoid issues before they happen. This way you can plan the risk mitigation strategy well in advance and be prepared throughout the change cycle.

How to create a Risk Assessment template:

5. Change Management Training Template

Your change management efforts can only be realized successfully if you plan your training program in line with your change initiatives.

Here’s how to prepare a training template that can withstand the change lifecycle and enable a smooth transition. Identify:

Go Beyond Planning

Organizational change is no easy task but following the above-mentioned change management plan template will help make it easier. 

You will need a tool to execute your change management plan. Digital Adoption Platform like Apty can provide impactful training with in-app guidance, communicate changes with in-app announcements, and analyze your training efforts successfully with the insight tool.

Overcoming employee resistance to change is one of the most challenging parts of making any organizational change.

Whether you’re changing a business process, restructuring a department or company, or implementing new enterprise software, you will likely encounter pushback and resistance to change from employees.

Combating resistance needs to be a part of your overall change management plan and strategy.

In this guide, we’ll provide an overview of the best approaches for dealing with resistance to change.

We’ll start by examining the top reasons employees resist change; then, we’ll explore six proven strategies for overcoming resistance to change. Finally, we’ll review some best practices to ensure your organizational change is successful.

Why People Resist Change

Before you can overcome resistance to change inside your organization, you need to understand the cause.

While there are many types of organizational change, employee pushback is fairly common and typically caused by one of these reasons:

Read More:- Organizational Change Management Models For Enterprises

3 Types of Resistance to Change

Here are the three main types of resistance to change I have encountered:

A. Group resistance

Group resistance is when a group of people or employees all resist the change. Again, this is often due to a justifiable reason. There is strength in numbers when it comes to group resistance.

B. Passive and active change resistance

The individual does not agree with the change but remains silent about it. He/she appears to go with the flow but deep down resists the change.
Opposite to passive resistance, people in this category speak up and act against the change. Directly or indirectly, they find a way to let matters stay the same way.

C. Attachment change resistance

Having strong emotional ties with existing practices, the individual tries to convince others not to push through changes. If it is not possible to fully block the change, he/she will attempt to compromise to retain the core of some processes.

4 Factors for resistance to change

The following are some factors for employee resistance to change:

1. A short-sighted focus

Most change strategies concentrate on fixing internal challenges failing to address external factors such as the customer experience, competitor moves, and advancements in technology.

2. Change Fatigue

Employees may get overwhelmed by multiple change projects that happen simultaneously or in quick succession. Such projects may cause change fatigue which may occur as burnout and frustration. It can even affect employees’ engagement and productivity.

3. Lack of endurance

When employees are not driven or trained enough to handle such unforeseen circumstances, they may cause unnecessary chaos. Also, if your business doesn’t have a full-fledged plan of the entire procedure right from the first day to the final outcomes, it may result in failure.

4. Company Culture

An organization with a change-resistant culture can find it challenging to implement change. Employees tend to get invested in a process that stays long in the organization. Thus, they get comfortable with the status quo. However, if leaders can map the stakeholders that the change will affect and educate and train them for transition, the change process will be accepted.

4 Reasons Why Employees Resist Change

Reason 1: Fear and Low Tolerance

Many employees dislike change because they are afraid. They fear that they won’t have the time to develop the new skills and behavior required of them, which leads to insecurity.

A lack of time to adapt also leads to the fear that they’ll appear incompetent in front of their colleagues. Adjustments could also lead to a loss of some relationships and activities, and an establishment of others.

Reason 2: Self-Interest

Some people might perceive that a change means they will lose power, whether that is significant decision-making power or the power of influence on their team. Other people might see one change as a sign that more changes are coming, which they could perceive as a threat.

If someone believes that a change means that their job is at risk, they are very likely to resist the change. They will push back on any effort that they perceive as a potential threat to their current situation.

Reason 3: Lack of Trust

If there is already a lack of trust between the manager and his or her employees, then employees are likely to resist when the manager introduces a change. While it’s difficult to establish a high level of trust between employees and managers, managers must work on these relationships.

Without trust, misunderstandings develop, and employees are less likely to “buy in” to essential changes. Managers need to quickly clear up any misconceptions so that resistance does not build and deepen across an organization.

Reason 4: Poor Communication

How the change is communicated to employees is extremely important. If a change isn’t communicated in its entirety, or if it’s only communicated to a particular group of people, other affected employees will likely resist. The way the change is communicated determines how employees will react.

If a manager can’t describe the process of exactly what needs to be changed, how the changes will be implemented, and how the change will improve things, then resistance should be expected.

Resistance to change is natural and should be expected. Employees fear losing relationships, activities, and even their jobs. Sometimes, they don’t trust that the change is worth the costs or that their manager knows what he or she is doing.

It’s vital to address resistance to change. By building trust and communicating the change clearly, managers can work against an employee’s impulse to resist and cultivate an environment that’s accepting of change.

Effective Ways to Minimize Employee Resistance to Change

Change takes time. No matter how detailed your change management strategy may be and how confident you are about the timeline, hurdles and hiccups are bound to surprise you. Implementing change involves various steps and requires the dedicated involvement of several stakeholders.

You are bound to have a hard time ensuring that everything is on track at all times. While an ideal implementation may seem like a possibility on paper, the reality on the ground may prove to be quite different. It is crucial to remember that sticking to the plan is vital despite challenges and delays.

The following are some effective ways to minimize employee change resistance,

i. Align the Strategies

Leaders need to collect enough data during planning. It allows them to create an understanding of the entire situation at the organization and formulate strategies that will be effective. If you make strategies that do not align, the change management process will fail. You need to foresee the outcome of the plan.

ii. Prioritize Well

Instead of large, all-at-once change implementation, opt for a slower, phased change approach to reduce change fatigue. Starting small and gradually scaling up will ensure that your employees are not overwhelmed.

iii. Focus on training and support

To reinforce the change, it is important that you provide support and some training to the employees. Training will help the employees to boost their productivity and also help them to overcome the barriers of change.

iv. Follow a framework

To create a smooth flow of activities and encourage the adoption of the change management policies, you need to limit resistance. The best way to do this is to implement the ADKAR framework. The elements of this model are as follows:

v. Devise a Communication Plan

Answer the simple queries like ‘what’s in it for me?’. You may eliminate ambiguity by describing the process, the essential milestones, and the procedures needed to get there.
Map out a communication plan that delivers the change management strategy with consideration and empathy. The more details you share with the team, the more positive a response you can expect to get from the team.

vi. Be firm with your strategic direction

Knowing what your next steps are is pivotal towards building resilience towards change. While communication is pivotal, without direction, it will lose cohesiveness too. To do so, be clear with what your objectives are. Have an estimated timeline on how your company or how the team will adapt to change.

Selecting a Strategy for Overcoming Resistance to Change

Once you’ve identified potential sources of resistance to change, you will need to implement specific strategies to address employees’ concerns.

Whether it is adapting to modern technology or overcoming resistance to change due to the COVID-19 pandemic, companies must leverage different strategies.

Strategy 1: Education & Communication

One of the chief sources of resistance is a misunderstanding of the change and the reasons for it. That means that your top strategy for overcoming resistance is to educate and clearly communicate with your organization’s employees and stakeholders.

The rumour mill can be vicious, so make sure that you’re transparent to prevent misinformation. Of course, this strategy only works alone if there are no other significant sources of resistance.

Strategy 2: Participation & Involvement

People like to feel as though they’re a part of things. If they believe they lack control or that their input doesn’t matter, they’re more likely to show resistance to change.

Make sure that you involve employees in the change, through seminars, working groups, committees, and other ways that people can give feedback and ask questions — or even be part of the change.

The primary drawback of this strategy is that you could have “too many cooks in the kitchen” and experience a drawn-out change process.

Strategy 3: Facilitation & Support

Many employees associate change with cutbacks and lost opportunities. Transition is difficult for everyone, so make sure your management team is equipped to fully support employees who feel nervous about the change.

You may need to expand your counseling and mentoring options, offer extended training, or fully communicate employees’ new opportunities for growth and promotion. If the primary source of resistance is anxiety about one’s future or role within the organization, this strategy can work very well.

A digital adoption solution, like Apty, can provide on-screen guidance to walk users through the changes step-by-step.

Strategy 4: Negotiation and Agreement

Sometimes, members of the organization will simply not adapt to change. Perhaps they have a vested interest in the way things were, or the change would unseat them from a position of power.

Have a plan to allow for negotiations and natural transitions out of the organization or into a new position within the organization. This approach can be expensive but may be useful when the change involves major disruptions to your current org chart.

Strategy 5: Manipulation and Co-optation

This strategy may not be advisable for all organizations. It is the practice of asking a pivotal individual to or group to take a prominent leadership role in the company or the change management initiative for the sole purpose of influencing the people who follow them.

The position is only symbolic, though, as the real leaders have no interest in the person’s input and are only seeking to manipulate their political or social sphere. Co-optation can easily backfire if people learn that they’ve been misled or manipulated.

Save this strategy for situations when transformation needs to happen quickly and inexpensively, and other methods won’t work.

Strategy 6: Explicit and Implicit Coercion

In extreme circumstances, it may not be feasible to take your time with prolonged communication and education efforts. The coercion strategy involves the change management team forcing employees of the organization to accept the change.

Those who refuse to adapt or comply will be fired or demoted. In situations where you expect a lot of resistance but must make a change quickly, this strategy may be the only option.

Best Practice for Dealing With Resistance to Change

No matter which strategies you deploy, organizational change will probably produce anxiety or aversion in your employees. A change management team needs to fully assess their organization’s unique needs and anticipate any sources of resistance to the change.

By incorporating these seven best practices into their change management plans, leaders can help the transition happen more smoothly and quell any concerns.

1. Address the social aspects of the change

Employees may be accustomed to long-standing traditions and structures, such as reporting to a particular person or documenting their work a certain way. When change starts happening, they may perceive the transition as a threat to their way of doing things.

Others may be concerned about losing their valued working relationships or reporting to a new boss. Keep these concerns in mind and consider offering new mentorship or support opportunities to ease anxiety.

2. Identify any existing trust issues and be transparent

While change can undoubtedly affect the trust that employees have with the management team, existing trust issues will be exacerbated. Those who don’t trust management are more likely to be suspicious of change — and therefore resistant to it.

That’s why it’s essential to be fully transparent during the transition so that even if trust has been/is damaged, employees can start to build it with management.

3. Communicate the logic for the change

For those not in a management position, some changes might seem to be “progress for progress’ sake.” If they don’t have the information about why a change is needed or how it might improve their efficiency, they’re more likely to dismiss it as a cumbersome new procedure or a power play by management. Always be open about why the change is happening, and show your employees any relevant data.

4. Be mindful of people’s skill gaps

Sometimes, people simply don’t have the competencies to meet new procedures. This is especially true for technological transitions. Rather than taking the resistance as simple aversion, take note of employees’ concerns about their ability to perform their jobs.

Additional training or new equipment options might be in order. Again, this is an area where you can leverage a Digital Adoption Solution to overcome the barriers to organization learning & training programs, and employee’s technical skills gaps.

5. Have a plan for those who will be negatively affected

Change will always leave someone in the lurch if positions have been eliminated or shuffled. Any changes to the org chart will breed resentment and potentially an employee exodus if not managed well.

The change management team needs to anticipate pushback from people who are inconvenienced by the change, then create a robust transition plan for those who are leaving positions or occupying new ones.

6. Give team members a chance to participate

When change is happening, people are likely to feel confused and nervous. Handing them a measure of control or power over the situation can alleviate their anxieties and decrease resistance to change.

Look for ways to bring your team members on board with the change, such as giving them the chance to provide feedback. Using one of the best Leapsome alternatives can simplify this process by allowing employees to participate in surveys and share continuous insights, helping them feel involved in how change happens in their department.

7. Be ready to deal with conflict

A strong team spirit and collaboration will help make the change more manageable, so it’s well worth your time to conduct team-building exercises. Latent employee conflicts will come out during transitional periods, so ensure that you set up mediation procedures.

The management should use their emotional intelligence to help resolve issues and ensure a smooth transition for everyone.

Key Takeaways for Dealing With Resistance to Change

Change can be scary. To effectively make change happen in your organization, take the time to plan your approach thoroughly, and set up any necessary support systems.

Remember, people may be resistant to change for several reasons. The change management team should anticipate these sources of resistance and take a transparent, constructive approach when addressing them.

By selecting the right strategies for dealing with resistance to change and following the best practices in this guide, you can empower a more efficient, streamlined change process.

‘Change Management Certifications’ may seem like a new-age business keyword, but you will be shocked at how valuable the right certification can be for anyone looking to build a career in the field.

Businesses today are changing the way they work. An environment like this has been created because of competition and value. Businesses are always competing and trying to provide incredible value to their customers.

This makes it imperative for organizations to invest in the right digital assets which invariably requires them to also invest in the right Change Management Strategies.

Having the right Organizational Change Management Certification can not only help individuals grow by leaps and bounds in their professional journeys but also empower organizations with the right strategies to implement in the change management initiatives.

In this environment, change becomes inevitable and organizations that do not embrace change, eventually perish.

As a result, organizations are always looking for Change Management professionals with adequate organizational change management training who can carry out this challenging task without negatively impacting the company.

In this guide we are going to explain in detail,

What type of change management qualifications is required?

Change Managers need to have a Bachelor’s degree in either business or in a relevant field. Then they need years of managerial experience in their respective field.

Post this they should get a change management certification that can help them to understand industry-approved frameworks in great detail. They can also opt for project management certification to accelerate their career.

What is a Change Management Certification Program?

A Change management certification program trains professionals to handle organizational change smoothly and effectively. A certified change manager can help the organization prevent resistance to change, provide teams support to accept change, and manage key stakeholders throughout the process.

A Change Management certificate is not the same as a certification. The distinction is that certificate programs do not require training and the certificate can be earned by passing an exam. While a certification program also requires passing an exam, it also requires training and hands-on experience so that the trainee meets industry standards.

Simply put, earning a certificate is not the same as being certified. A certification carries more weight.

How does Change Management Program help?

Change management programs allow the organization to manage new processes efficiently and achieve the desired business outcomes. These programs have to be structured properly as they involve multiple elements that can determine the future of your organization.

To ensure the success of the change management program organizations must get organizational buy-in, implement change initiatives seamlessly and design a program that can be scaled across the organization.

A change Management Program allows the leader to identify the gaps and mitigate risks by continuous monitoring.

Things that you would learn during Change Management programs:-

People have to learn all these aspects during the certification program. The approach from one program to another may vary but the end goal of these enterprise change management certification programs remains the same.

Whether you are a student currently pursuing a Bachelor’s or Master’s degree, or a professional with a few years of experience. You can enhance your existing skills with these self-paced certifications.

Top 9 Change Management Certification

There are many organizational change management certifications in the market, it could be confusing to go through all of those certifications. As a result, we have shortlisted the top 9 certification programs to consider.

1. Change Management Specialist

Change management specialist certification is for those who want a good understanding of change management. This certification will help you design and implement change across the organization. It also trains you on how to manage change and persuade people as to why change is a must.

This certification is for those people who have just started their careers or already have a few years of experience.

On completion of this program, you would receive 30 Professional competency units(CPU) from the MSI. You would also receive 30 Professional Development Credits (PDC).

Advantages of this change management specialist certification:-

Other relevant details:-

2. Change Management Foundation Certificate

APMG International provides Change Management Foundation Certification program in collaboration with CMI (Change Management Institute). It’s been purely designed by keeping beginners in mind. If you are new to change management then this is the way to go as it would take you through all the basics that one might require in their very first project.

Even if you have a decent amount of experience and looking to get a Change Management practitioner certification then, in that case, this certification program is mandatory.

This program provides certification only when you score 25 marks out of 50.

Things you will learn in Change Management Foundation Program:-

Other relevant details:-

3. Change Management Practitioner

Again, this certification is being provided by APMG international. The Change Management Practitioner certification is for those professionals who are in the mid-level of their career or in a phase where they want to climb the corporate ladder.

Before applying for this program, one has to complete the Change Management Foundation certification.

This certification will further enhance your knowledge as one has already completed the foundation program. Before committing to a certification path, many professionals begin by assessing leadership capabilities to better understand their strengths, decision-making style, and readiness to lead complex change initiatives. It gives you in-depth knowledge of change as it trains you to plan by keeping people at the heart of your strategy.

Things that one would learn from Change Management Practitioner Programs are:-

Other relevant details:-

4. Certified Change Management Professional

Association of Change Management Professional(ACMP) offers a Certified Change Management Professional Certification(CCMP). CCMP certification adheres to the industry-leading standard for change management by ACMP.

It’s one of the most recognized change management certifications in the world and many corporate companies value it more than anything else.

The certificate is for those who have a vast amount of experience and knowledge in the field of change management.

On passing this certification one gets 60 Professional Development Units(PDU).

The objective of this certification is not only to impart best practices but it is also useful for an individual to gain knowledge.

Advantages associated with CCMP certification:-

Other relevant details:-

5. Prosci Change Management Certification

It’s a three-day in-person certification program. Here you will learn the ADKAR model and PROSCI methodology, and the learning would be applied in one of your ongoing projects.

It is for those who are at the mid-manager level or for managers who handle the complete project. The program is expensive but it takes care of your hotel accommodation and food.

It’s one of the rarest programs where you would come across a collaborative approach in real-time and in-person. Since the program is being conducted in a resort, you have enough time to network with like-minded people across the industry. You would also have an opportunity to get a one-on-one session with the Prosci Master.

Advantages of PROSCI Change Management Certification:-

Other relevant details:-

6. Change Manager – Foundation Certification

Global Association for Quality Management provides Change Manager Foundation Certification program. It’s a foundational program that helps you to get a basic understanding of change management. It helps you to be an informed team member in a change management initiative in your organization.

It is targeted towards Team members and Process Managers.

It’s a pre-requisite for those who want to get “Practitioner Certification”.

Advantage of Change Manager-Foundation Certification:-

Other relevant details:-

7. Certified Problem and Change Manager

Certified Problem and Change Manager(CPCM) is another certification that is being offered by the Global Association for Quality Management(GAQM). It teaches you how to cope with change and manage people during change.

It’s targeted towards Change Managers and Process Managers. People who have the problem-solving ability can take up this course to enhance and boost their ability.

One can complete this program through an online medium.

Advantages of CPCM certification is:-

Other relevant details:-

8. AIM Change Management Certification

AIM stands for Accelerated Implementation Methodology. It’s a practical program and is pricey compared to other certifications.

It’s targeted towards industry leaders and Project Managers. As the name suggests it’s the rapid way towards optimizing change across the organization.

Advantages of AIM change management certification:-

Other relevant details:-

9. Change Manager Certificate

Change Manager certification is being provided by the Association for Talent Development. It’s for mid-level Managers who are responsible for change management projects.

This certification is targeted towards HR professionals and Managers.

The program can be attended in person or via online medium. It has very strict guidelines according to which a participant wouldn’t receive the certification if they even miss a single session.

Upon completion, one gets 14 CEU’s (Continuing Education Units).

Advantages of attending this certification are:-

Other relevant details:-

As we have seen all the change management certifications and their value. It’s time to answer the question “what other alternatives are available?”

Well, you can go for a Udemy course or you could attend MooC’s course offered by some prominent universities.

You could also attend a part-time course from the universities in your vicinity or you could count on your mentor to guide you through all these concepts, the only drawback is you won’t get any certificate to showcase your expertise.

It all depends on your short-term and long-term objectives.

Let us explore how organizations should structure their change management training programs which can further help the employees to excel and manage change better. 

How to plan Change management training?

A. Understand what type of training is required

Training is essential for change management. The workforce must receive training that can help them adopt the change.

Organization should identify the struggles of the employees and understand their requirements.

They can conduct a survey or use a digital adoption platform that can help organizations to determine the type of training that is required and help to design relevant content.

B. Incorporate Training

Many change management initiatives fail just because of poor communication. Having a communication plan in place is mandatory as it will help employees to know when specific changes will happen and how they will impact their operations.

A cadence must be set for communication that can help to streamline the complete communication process. It is important to decide which channel should be opted for different types of messages, how the information will be packaged and delivered, who will review it before sending it to all, and what will be the timing of the messages.

Ideally, more than two channels must be opted to communicate messages as this could reinforce and reduce the loss of information.

C. Select easy to consume and accessible training

Traditional training methods like classroom training, and seminar costs a bomb as it includes expenditures like travel, lodging, equipment, and trainer fees. It takes time to plan this arrangement and if any employee misses this then they usually don’t get an opportunity to revisit the course.

But thanks to technology, today companies can go with on-demand and self-learning programs that help employees to access the course as and when they want.

This provides flexibility and employees can learn without leaving their desks which saves a lot of time and money for the organization.

Going Forward

There are a plethora of programs available both online and offline. It’s up to you to decide what would fit your bill.

All these programs and certifications have their specialties and none of them are similar by any means.

It also depends on your organization’s needs. Sometimes you don’t need any kind of certification at all as they are efficient enough to carry out organizational change management initiatives.

Having said that, all your learnings will go in vain if that learning is not being implemented in the projects handled by you. Eventually, as a certified change manager, you can fuel your change management initiatives with some digital transformation tools.

Organizations go through different phases of change and it is never the same for 2 organizations.

Having the right change management tools can bring structure to the chaotic process of change management. Enterprises that have a large number of employees can benefit largely from these tools.

What is Change Management Software?

Change management software helps organizations effectively drive change to make it easier for both employees and customers. This can be a change in process, staff, or software. Change management software tools help organizations implement plans, structure training programs, collect feedback, and more.

With the right set of change management processes, tools, strategies, and techniques, organizations can seamlessly handle change and overcome barriers to create a positive impact on business outcomes.

Here is a list of agile change management tools that can be leveraged to speed up the process.

Top Change Management Tools

1. Apty

Apty, a versatile Digital Adoption Tool, meets all the business needs cited above. Apty is an all-in-one Digital Adoption Platform that helps companies manage any change associated with Digital Transformation. 

Apty is a Modern DAP solution that understands any web-based application to provide valuable insights to the organization and in-app guidance to the end-user.

Apty introduced the term DAP cycle to the digital adoption world.

Apty reduces employee resistance to change and helps companies to implement the latest digital tools. Apty empowers on-screen learning and identifies the place where the users are getting stuck and need assistance.

Once the pain points are identified, you can go ahead and create interactive walkthroughs to address employee needs.

Key benefits of Apty:

Here are 7 ways Apty can assist Salesforce change management.

2. Freshservice – IT Service Management Solution

Freshservice is a cloud-based Change Management tool that allows you to streamline the process from planning to rollout. It provides customizable software and helps in automating tasks.

Freshservice provides solutions for:

Freshservice is a powerful software with a user-friendly interface that enhances organizational transformation.

Key change management features:

Pros:

Cons:

3. Remedy Management 9 – IT Service Management Solution

Remedy 9 by BMC software is a cloud-based Change Management tool that combines an IT director, a service desk manager, a service delivery manager, and a change manager into one suite.

This innovative IT Service Management (ITSM) software identifies uncertainty and potential risks when dealing with organizational transformation.

Remedy 9 provides solutions for: 

Key change management features:

Pros:

Cons: 

4. ChangeGear – Enterprise-level IT service management platform

ChangeGear is an enterprise-level ITIL-based Change Management software that allows you to plan your organizational Change Management strategies. It uses advanced automation and controls to manage your transformation process in one simple interface.

ChangeGear provides solutions for:

ChangeGear has solutions for multiple roles including IT, DevOps, and business.

Key change management features:

Pros:

Cons:

5. Gensuite – Compliance & Management Software

Gensuite Change Management Software will simplify the Management of Change (MOC) process by managing processes, compliance, and risks for transformation. It creates a standardized process for identifying and implementing the need for organizational-wide transformation.

Gensuite, the self-configurable platform, is designed to track and manage risks as operational, equipment and people-related changes occur.

Gensuite provides solutions for:

Key change management features:

Pros:

Cons:

6. Viima – Cloud-Based Idea Management Software

Viima is a collaboration Change Management software that allows you to gather ideas from employees, stakeholders, and customers all in one place. Viima is a smart idea management platform for collecting, analyzing, and prioritizing ideas.

Viima  provides solutions for

Key change management features:

Pros:

Cons:

7. Giva – IT Help Desk Software

Giva provides solutions for

Key change management features:

Pros:

Cons:

8. Howspace- AI-Powered Digital Collaboration Tool

Howspace is a socially-driven Change Management tool for learning both management and organizational transformations. This AI-powered platform lets your team members collaborate, post their ideas, and interact with one another throughout the transformation process.

How Space provides solutions for:

Key change management features:

Pros:

Cons:

9. SolarWinds Web Help Desk – IT Ticketing Software

Change isn’t instantaneous. It will take several rounds before a new process or software becomes routine for end users. One of the main challenges in training and change management is the forgetting curve.

In the transformation process, keeping a track of a huge number of tickets is always challenging. SolarWinds Web Help Desk is a ticketing Change Management software designed to perform various operations using a single console.

Solarwinds provides solutions for

Key change management features:

Pros:

Cons:

10. The Change Shop – Change Management Platform

It is a cloud-based application that primarily focuses on collaborative feedback, data collecting, and surveys to evaluate the readiness of your team.

The four principles, give voice to your team, compare results, team engagement, and use data

The Change Shop provides solutions for:

These are designed to manage your organizational transformation.

Before implementing transformation, leverage Change Shop to create ‘what-if‘ scenarios and identify potential risk factors and negative impacts tailored to your organization.

Key change management features:

Pros:

Cons:

Suggested Tools

11. Intelligent Service Management

Intelligent Service Management accurately and responsively supports your customers and ensures that your IT resources meet the business needs of your organization and your end-users.

Intelligent Service Management Provides Solutions for:

Key change management features:

Pros:

Cons:

12. Rocket Aldon

Rocket Aldon change management tools help maintain records regarding all the application parts and how they are related. It makes it easier to assess the impact of the change before a line of code is altered. They free developers from the laborious task of dealing with complex directory and library structures.

Rocket Aldon Provides Solutions for:

Key change management features:

Pros:

Cons:

13. StarTeam by MicroFocus – Change and Configuration Management Software

Starteam allows you to manage change from inception to delivery. It provides both change and version management for the entire delivery lifecycle and maintains control and visibility of software deliverables. This allows development teams to deliver faster, with higher quality, while providing end-to-end process compliance.

Starteam Provides Solutions for:

Key change management features:

Pros:

Cons:

14. InvGate Service Management

InvGate Service Management is a cloud and on-premise ITSM software that allows organizations to streamline their IT operations. Its no-code configuration provides businesses with enough flexibility to adapt the solution to their specific needs, without the need to write code. InvGate Service Management provides solutions for:

Additionally, it follows ITIL best practices.

Key change management features:

Pros:

Cons:

Which Change Management Tool is Right for Your Business?

Before investing in change management software for your business, there are various factors that you have to consider.

The first factor to consider is the change management model that your organization is going to follow. Read more about various change management models here.

Once you choose the model, analyze the existing processes in your business operations and identify what needs to be changed. Apty is an excellent tool to analyze software usage and find gaps in your processes.

Change management usually involves 3 phases:

The right change management tool must be able to assist you in all these stages. Effective change management with the help of the right tool can help meet the objectives and ensure the success of your project.

Why Apty is the best change management tool?

Apty is a digital adoption platform that helps enterprises streamline change management with its various features. Here are six of many reasons why Apty is the best change management tool.

A. Engage Employees and Avoid Change Resistance

When you incorporate changes to your business operations, in order for these changes to be adopted by your employees, they will need the right kind of support and assistance.

Apty’s contextual walkthroughs and tooltips speed up software adoption at your enterprise by 300%, making sure that each one of your employees are on track to mastering your new software and processes without any hassle. Several Fortune 500 Companies trust apty for their change management and digital adoption needs.

B. Automate Tasks and Speed Up Adoption

Companies are leveraging AI and other new innovations to maximize their business outputs and minimize human labor. Automation is one of those innovations. A large portion of office work is mundane and can be automated, reducing the burden on employees and freeing their time that can be spent on higher priority work.

Apty’s chatbot lets you automate mundane tasks and reduce human effort. When an employee wants to complete a task, they can simply ask the chatbot to do it and provide only the necessary information needed to complete the task.

C. Streamline Change Communication

Effective communication is critical for successful organizational change. At each stage of the process, change managers have to openly communicate about the change and its benefits to the end users who will be affected by the change.

Apty’s announcement feature is the perfect solution to communicate changes to business processes. The announcement can be customized to launch a walkthrough that takes the employee through the changes that have been set. If an employee has ignored an important message, they can be reminded after a while to go through the changes and to familiarize themselves with the new processes.

D. Enable Business Process Compliance

No matter what industry you are in, your business processes and operations have to comply internal and external policies, rules, and regulations. The new processes that you design as part of your change initiative must also comply to these policies.

Apty helps you stay business process compliant with its various features. It’s data validation tool ensures clean and accurate data collection in the right format. Apty’s workflows and tooltips ensure that employees follow processes the way they are intended to be. Apty’s activity tracking lets you keep an audit trail of all the software activity on your enterprise tech stack without compromising your employees’ privacy.

E. Provide Ongoing Training and Support

An effective change program has to prioritize employee training before, during, and after the program. Apty’s on-screen guidance can be used to provide customized training to your employees where they can learn on-the-job, with no productivity lost.

Apty enables micro-learning where the training is provided in small chunks so that employees stay engaged throughout the process, increasing knowledge retention. Training is crucial to ensure change management success and Apty helps you with it.

F. Reduce Costs

With Apty always available to your employees for any software assistance that they need, it saves the organization a lot of money which would otherwise be spend on IT and support teams. Software training costs for your change initiative usually takes up a large chunk of the allotted budget. With Apty, you can reduce training costs by a large margin, while also ensuring effective training.

Handling employee resistance to change is the biggest impediment to propagating change. Apty enables hassle-free employee training & onboarding without the need of lengthy manuals or time-consuming training sessions.

Apty provides helpful on-the-job learning with the help of in-app guidance. This improves employee engagement and minimizes their resistance to change.

In today’s hyper-competitive business world, organizations that adapt themselves to change are the ones that grow. Transformation is necessary for any business to deliver feasible solutions to its growing customer base. Given that it is inevitable in the business world, it is wise to try and predict transformations as far as possible.

Changes may be hard or uncomfortable, but with the help of the appropriate management techniques, businesses can overcome them all seamlessly. To achieve successful implementation leverage Change Management Models that could help you achieve your business goals.

Some of the famous theories and models you can explore are:

But one of the more popular models in change management is the ADKAR Model, which is what we will be exploring.

What is the ADKAR Model?

ADKAR Change Management Model is a 5-step framework that deals with organizational transformation goals. This methodology was developed in the year 2003 by Jeff Hiatt, the founder of Prosci.

ADKAR is an acronym of Awareness-Desire-Knowledge-Ability-Reinforcement (more on this later).

What is special about the Prosci ADKAR model?

The Prosci ADKAR change management model is one of the most widely known and applied models that focusses on “the people side of change”. It is a step-by-step structured approach that ensures organizational change management.

Here are the Pros: