When developing your cloud adoption strategy, it is important to consider what your employees really require to adapt to the new cloud technologies. Digital Transformation is not a new topic. There are distinct factors associated with successful transformations. Likewise, there are many, very helpful change management frameworks and learning and enablement best practices to help leaders shape their transformation strategy. Still, it is possible to lose sight of what users really need and to potentially allocate resources and time to less impactful efforts.

I have moved many times in my lifetime, to various regions in the United States and internationally. As a result, I have developed a pretty good picture of what is essential to successfully move to a new home. A significant task when moving to any new city involves adapting my routines to the local grocery store. On top of all the other change that comes with moving, I must come to terms with leaving behind my previous, familiar grocery store and learn how to shop at my new grocery store. Yet, no matter where I am, I can successfully buy groceries.

I am confident I can buy groceries no matter where life takes me because I know some basic things about how grocery stores work and how they are organized.

  • I can expect that grocery items are arranged logically by category on shelves. I can expect that prices will somehow be noted.
  • I can expect that there will be a point-of-sale system which will provide the total of the items I want to purchase, and which will accept my payment for those items.
  • While I may not know where things are located at first, or which specific options are available, I know I can ask a store employee where things are, and they will either tell me where the items are located, or they will walk me to the location themselves.

It might take me longer to locate my groceries at first, but ultimately, I can buy what I need to take care of myself.

When helping employees adopt a digital state of mind, it is important to remember the full scope of what employees know before developing a learning and enablement plan. Being conscious of what employees already know allows you to better plan and to better boost the confidence of employees concerned about the change. Using a digital adoption tool like Oracle Guided Learning allows employees to begin familiarizing themselves with the new way of doing business while simultaneously leveraging the breadth of their background knowledge. Organizations who use OGL well build trust with employees who will come to expect the presence of support no matter where they wander in the application.

Consider how traditional classroom-based models of L&E look in our grocery store example. Imagine you cannot find the olive oil. You ask for help locating it. The grocery store clerk walks you to a conference room, describes the path to you with a well-designed slide deck. The clerk shows you a video of them navigating to the correct location, kindly asks if you have any questions, and then sends you on your way. This is a silly scenario. Of course, that wouldn’t happen because it is generally assumed that anyone in a grocery store asking for help just needs navigational support or product specific information provided on the spot.

Oracle Guided Learning leverages what employees already know and helps them gain confidence and familiarity so much faster than traditional models of L&E. In the context of our fictional grocery store, OGL is our helpful clerk who helps us in the following ways

  • Process Guides: these guides help users navigate within the new application, either as a tour of available features or to complete high-frequency transactions.
  • Smart Tips: these guides provide field or feature level guidance. These guides will help users remember things like particular naming conventions, whether to include sales tax, which day the pay period starts on, etc.
  • Messages: these guides can remind users of important updates or time-based information. Think, “Sale on aisle 5 you don’t want to miss!” With message guides you can catch the attention of your users right where and when they need it.

With OGL there are limitless options for supporting your users in their transition to the new cloud application. The best way for your users to get familiar and to gain confidence is to spend time in the application. By ensuring they know there is always a friendly “clerk” known as OGL available to help them, they can transition to the new way of doing business quicker.