3 Events That Demand a Better Digital Adoption Strategy for Field Workers

Recognizing disruptive elements to your mobile workforce training program

Today’s businesses recognize that they can’t expect success when they equip their employees with outdated devices and applications. However, deploying new devices and software for your field and operations teams can be very time consuming, tedious and quite expensive. And, if done poorly and without an effective digital adoption strategy, it can have several negative implications for your business.

To minimize disruptions, it’s important to recognize three key events that can trigger a need to train your mobile workforces on their applications and devices. These events present opportunities for better training -- which can mean less time out from the field, quicker relearning of a task for field workers and lower overall costs for your company.

Developing and sharing a new business-critical application that will help workers on the front lines to be more effective and productive should be a positive experience. Unfortunately, rolling out a new application doesn’t always go as well as it should. Even the best plans can be undermined by things like a rushed or poorly managed process where workers don’t understand how to use the technology in ways that deliver them the greatest benefits. IT bottlenecks and other technical problems can also delay a project or cause stress and frustration and even turn workers hostile to future change. It’s further complicated when there are hundreds, or even thousands, of workers who all need the new application to do their jobs.

2. Migration and updates of legacy mobile applications and devices

You may already have quite a few legacy devices out in the field, paired with an application that runs off of them. If these have been in the field for years there’s likely an upgrade or change necessary for workers to continue using the tools effectively. For instance, perhaps your devices have historically run on a Windows operating system but now must migrate to Android OS. In an ideal world, you’d upgrade the devices themselves, but that isn’t always feasible. But even when there is some degree of change in the application, caused by adapting it to a new operating system, users now need to relearn how to use both the devices and the application.

3. Regulatory pressures and compliance

There are increasing regulatory pressures across many industries today, notably transportation and logistics. For example, the U.S. Department of Transportation recently mandated that companies implement an electronic logging device, which runs on a mobile computer in the cab of the truck. Drivers have to log their activity via the application which is telematically tied to the vehicle. Companies face hefty fines if they’re found to not be in compliance.

Another example: both electric and gas utility companies are under increasing regulatory pressure after recent incidents such as wildfires in California in Colorado and several natural gas explosions around the country. These pressures have raised the need for better inspection processes, asset tracking and documentation as well as improved safety practices. As is common with shipping logistics, one way to increase compliance is through digital documentation. In order to ensure appropriate and consistent usage of mobile applications that have a high regulatory or compliance impact, an effective mobile workforce training program is needed for digital solutions and devices.

By being more effective through a better digital adoption strategy, you can ensure a successful mobile app or device deployment and lower  your risk of business disruption. You’re taking people out of the field less for training, and when they’re in the field and forget how to do something, they can quickly relearn how to do it. This enables accelerated training, less downtime, and lower expenses for your organization.

To learn more, download our Ultimate Guide to Digital Training for Your Field Workforce

Skyllful is a leading provider of a mobile digital adoption platform that helps companies with large, mobile workforces deploy mission-critical enterprise mobile applications smoothly and successfully. With deep expertise of mobile technology and best practice field deployments as well as a leadership team with decades of experience working with large enterprise mobile workforces and applications, Skyllful offers a platform for empowering field workers to use enterprise mobile apps more efficiently and effectively, maximizing the positive effect of mobile application deployments.

Skyllful’s approach to technology-driven training and engagement combines on-device, on-demand, contextual-based simulations, reinforcement activities, deep analytics and reporting on field readiness for an enterprise-wide view of mobile employees’ impact on the organization. Whether a company is deploying a new mission-critical workforce app or seeking to improve its workforce engagement with existing apps, the Skyllful platform is easy to use, intuitively designed and proven to increase productivity and deliver greater returns on investments in technology.