Today’s workforce is different from that of 10 years ago, or even five, for that matter. As Millennials gradually become a larger percentage of the workforce, they bring with them new ideals of what work-life balance and loyalty to their employer means. In a recent survey, only 16% of Millennial respondents surveyed saw themselves as still working for their current employer in 10 years. In the same survey, having a good work-life balance was the most important factor when evaluating job opportunities, according to Millennial respondents.

Providing access to the tools they need to gain that flexibility can go a long way towards an employee’s satisfaction. It’s a delicate balance to achieve both employee satisfaction and cost savings in a single solution. That’s why implementing any new technology, including unified communications as a service (UCaaS), must adopt a change management strategy.

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To ensure user adoption, organizations need to approach UCaaS rollouts based on a proven framework—an end-to-end process that allows them to plan the addition of new technologies, coexist with old and new technologies side by side, and then upgrade fully to the new solution when ready. As framework might include the following steps:

• Determine project stakeholders: Among the project teams, who will champion this project?
• Define the end-to-end project: Understanding scope, goals and timeline can help drive the project successfully
• Assess network readiness: Is the network able to support the services you are trying to deliver? If not, what upgrades are needed?
• Assess user readiness: How will user acceptance be driven and measured?
• Deploy and implement: Begin technology pilot, coexist with existing services and plan upgrade strategy based on results
• Achieve operational excellence: What steps are needed to drive value and sustained operation based on user adoption?

Scenarios vs. Services

Establishing a framework as found in the points above is critical to the UCaaS adoption process, however, employees are people, and react to scenarios, not services. Scenarios such as the following are common amongst workplaces:

• “There are too many editors on this document—we need better version control!”
• “I have an idea and need feedback”
• “I need to find an example of …”
• “How can I best incorporate all of the feedback I received on this document?”

Identifying the scenarios in which employees would use UCaaS is critical, and current use cases and scenarios can help create a starting point. A successful journey can begin with “like for like” functionality, leveraging the net new capabilities, or somewhere in between.

Organizations also need to talk with employees at all levels of the company—from the mailroom to the boardroom—and THEN find services and solutions that help employees solve and streamline those problems.

Embracing Change Management

Change management doesn’t stop with a successful UCaaS implementation. Goals must be revisited regularly and teams must engage with employees frequently about emerging challenges or changes in their day-to-day operations. By considering the changing needs of the employees and their individual and collective needs for work-life balance, and utilizing a change management framework designed to meet those needs, organizations will be well on the road to a successful UCaaS adoption.

For a deeper look at how organizations can implement a change management strategy to ensure successful UCaaS adoption, view our eBook.

• UCaaS, 
• UCaaS adoption