Management Software For Small Businesses: Life-Saver for Owners, Necessary Evil For Employees

Who said that going digital would be easy? Human beings don’t like changes by their nature! So, be ready to deal with resistance against any new solution for your small business

Table of Contents

“Sell” a New Company Management Program to Your Team
Is the Organization Software You’ve Selected Really a Good Fit?
Why Employees Resist Digital Transformation
End of a “Running Business in the Dark” Era
Final Thoughts

“Sell” a New Company Management Program to Your Team

Modern technology transforms the way we work in a positive way. Deciding to automate your daily processes is a good thing, you know that. Now, you need to convince your employees they will benefit from this innovation, too.

What's In It For Me?

Prepare a quick presentation highlighting all the advantages of the tool and how they will make work life easier — from the employee’s perspective. Avoid talking in general terms like “increase productivity”, “better service”, and don't even think about using the word “control”. You have to demonstrate each benefit on real examples from their everyday routine so they see the software for management is not your whim but a necessity.

What's It All For?

Another point you should communicate to your employees is what exactly you want your business to achieve with digital transformation. You do have such a goal, don't you? Whatever it might be, again, think about how achieving this goal will impact your employees’ lives. And don’t forget to introduce it with excitement and enthusiasm.

Is the Organization Software You’ve Selected Really a Good Fit?

You won’t be using the tool purely yourself although that’s probably only you who is actively testing it. That is why it is highly recommended to involve your team in the evaluation process so you all can see how it will improve your daily routine.

Invite your employees to your trial account and start testing it together. This will be more fun and allow you to share experiences and thoughts on a new thing you are trying out together. Collect feedback from each team member and make them feel comfortable to express their doubts or concerns.

In RemOnline, you can add employees right from the start to trial all the functions together. In addition, you’ll be guided by your personal onboarding manager to quickly set up the solution according to your business needs.

Work Orders in RemOnline

Why Employees Resist Digital Transformation

These are common rejections owners face when introducing new business tools to their teams:

Inconvenient

Rearranging daily routines and developing new working habits might be stressful for some employees, especially if they have worked with old processes for a long time. Trying out a new thing seems like an additional workload and provokes a negative reaction. In this mood, employees could look at the business software program as the source of all problems and start describing it as “inconvenient”. 

Solution: Be patient and give them some time to adjust — at least a month as it takes between 21 and 66 days to form a new habit.

Time-Consuming

You probably don’t expect that your team will complain about a new tool taking them more time to work with daily tasks than before. On the contrary, it should save time...The truth is that any solution to manage business requires regular data entry which is, yes, time-consuming. You’ll need to constantly remind your team and yourself: as soon as it has enough data, it will make the processes smoother and faster.

Solution: Encourage your employees to enter all the needed data right from the start until it becomes habitual. Use any preset directories and data importing features your solution offers to make their life a bit easier. E.g., in RemOnline, there are ready-made product and asset directories as well as document templates for different business types. 

Too Complicated

Let’s face it, not everyone likes working with software and not everybody can. Sometimes, it’s just a lack of skills that is hidden behind the comment “it’s too complicated”.

Solution: Besides the manuals and tutorials vendors provide, create your own guidelines for all roles on how to work with the new system. Focus on the essential functionality your employees will use to get the work done and carefully set up access rights to avoid misunderstandings or errors.

End of a “Running Business in the Dark” Era

To adopt a business management system properly, it is an absolute must to evaluate results after some time. When data is collected, workflows are set up, and the new work structure has become “normal work”, it’s time for reports. This is the functionality that you as an owner will value the most — just a few clicks and you’ll see how healthy your business is and where your growth points are. Enjoy! You did a good job. It was worth all the effort.

Final Thoughts

Deciding on what small business administration software to choose is only half the battle, the rest will come when you start implementing it in your company. Don’t expect everyone to welcome a new tool with excitement but be ready to deal with rejections and overcome any negative reaction instead. Focus on your main goal, engage employees, and be consistent. You will notice very soon all the positive impact digitalization has on your business. 

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