Maximize Your Technology Investments

Here are a few ways to maximize the return on technology investments you make:

1. Strive for a corporate culture that embraces change.
2. Create incentives for employees to maintain and upgrade skills.
3. Provide training, but don’t view it as the catch-all, end-all. Make sure employees understand the strategic advantages of the system.
4. Provide training appropriate to an employee’s job function. General one-size-fits-all instruction burdens employees with information they probably don’t need.
5. Make sure there’s a payoff for employees. If they can do their work better, faster or easier, than they will more willingly upgrade their skills.
6. Ensure that systems provide maximum simplicity and usability.
7. Provide appropriate training at all levels of the company.

SOURCE: Sam Greengard, Workforce Magazine, December 1998.