by Dale Carnegie Staff
2020 completely flipped nearly every industry on its side. It required professional training companies to step back and assess how they would be able to continue to best serve their customers under the new circumstances and help lead the new remote and hybrid workplace culture. It challenged them to be resourceful, resilient and agile, to update business products and delivery worldwide quickly.
The pandemic fueled a digital transformation for many companies and changed their business model, as Dale Carnegie did. As a training company specializing in leadership, presentation, sales and organizational development training, they prepared to help guide their clients along with their own companies’ digital transformation from 2021 into 2022.
Here are some ways leaders can be more successful in implementing digital transformation in their organization, as well as some examples of the changes instituted in the Dale Carnegie course delivery model.
Streamline your Communications
As we move from work from home (WFH) to work from anywhere (WFA) or to a hybrid model, if the job permits it, some employees might be working from various locations, while others may even be working on the go-between in-person meeting or other tasks. With more hope on the horizon provided by the vaccine distribution, more companies will begin to consider hybrid work schedules as well.
Whatever the case might be, it’s critical to select the right communication and collaboration technologies to bridge the physical gap between employees and teams and facilitate cross-department collaboration.
With many competing platforms such as Slack, Teams, Zoom, Skype, etc., an important step in the digital transformation process, at least when it comes to communication, is to unify your business communications through a centralized platform. This not only eliminates redundancies and confusion, but it saves costs and helps to promote efficiencies.
Lead with Empathy and Create Trust in Leadership
Organizational changes, such as the implementation of new technology, can understandably create stress and worry for employees. It’s important for leadership teams to recognize that and be aware of how a digital shift may potentially impact team morale.
Empathize with how these changes may be perceived by your employees and proactively address potential concerns. Helping employees feel confident that they can develop the skills needed to continue to succeed in the digital era is critical to the success of your digital transformation.
Good communication from leadership can help minimize apprehension. With a strong trust in a company, a commitment to transparency and dedication to building confidence in employees’ ability to transition, companies will go a long way toward turning their employees into technology advocates and empower them to feel positive about the changes that are happening.
Involve Employees from the Start
Involve teams, specifically at the management level, from the very beginning. By including team members in the process and asking for their input, it becomes easier to earn their trust in the value of the technology and process changes as it will be a collective and collaborative decision. The employees who have a hand in conceiving the redefinition of the process will be instant advocates and as a result, will influence further buy-in from their colleagues and individual departments and teams.
At the onset of the pandemic, Dale Carnegie formed an agile global task force to help all locations across the world transition course delivery to online platforms, which required both the technology and the delivery skills needed to teach our content effectively in a virtual setting.
While organizational change is never easy, prioritizing employee morale and effective communication will yield a more successful digital transformation. As we propel digital changes forward in 2023, business leaders must remain invested in the preservation of company culture and employee engagement above all else.
Accelerate Momentum with Newfound Agility
As we continue to persevere from the post-pandemic and the experiences we’ve been through, it’s important to not lose sight of the growth and progress made.
Over the past several months, we’ve remained focused on network recovery and bringing our vision of the future Dale Carnegie to reality. Now more than ever, we are positioned to thrive because of our ability to digitally transform the entire global organization so quickly.
As our new reality evolves, we continue to be innovative and have found ways to kickstart our digital transformation. We’ve scaled our offerings to provide flexible, blended solutions tailored to meet our clients’ needs. The combination of in-person and live online course options has enabled us to deliver our courses to customers how and where they want.
We’ve debuted Learn from Anywhere, our flexible session-to-session option that allows participants to choose where they are most comfortable taking their training. This new offering aims to alleviate customer hesitation about signing up for an in-person course, as the “room” remains flexible throughout the course, regardless of circumstances.
Our blueprint moving forward also introduces Dale Carnegie eVolve, our new digital collaboration and learning platform. The Dale Carnegie Learn from Anywhere + eVolve platform connects our customers, trainers, and their peers on a single platform regardless of training modality. All course materials, discussions, practice and additional on-demand content will live in one convenient location.
Many organizations have been more agile than they ever imagined possible in their responses to the pandemic. As leaders, the next question we must ask ourselves is: How can we continue being this agile into the future and build resilient teams?
About the Editor:
Robert Graves, MBA, is a Dale Carnegie Certified Trainer for Dale Carnegie Tampa Bay. His focus is Relationship Selling. He is the author of “Making More Money with Technology.” He often speaks on the evolution of Marketing, Sales, and Service. Robert can be reached at robert.graves@dalecarnegie.com or call/text 813-966-3058.
About Dale Carnegie:
Dale Carnegie is a global training and development organization specializing in leadership, communication, human relations, and sales training solutions. More than 9 million people around the world have graduated from Dale Carnegie training since it was founded in 1912. Dale Carnegie Training can help an organization build effective interpersonal skills that generate the positive emotions essential to a productive work environment and that lead to increased employee engagement.
