By The Protech Team

It’s hard to find new software for your organization. It’s even harder to find software solutions your staff will actually use.

Why? Because people are resistant to change, and learning something new is never easy. On top of that, only 32 percent of Americans are still engaged while at work, according to a Gallup survey — meaning 68 percent aren’t enthusiastic about and committed to their job. That means your staff may not be as excited as you are when it’s time for new software onboarding.

To help associations adopt new software — whether it be a new content management system, marketing automation platform or association management software — we wanted to help make the learning process a little easier. Protech’s Amanda Ekwall, a solution consultant, and Audrey Smilgys, a senior solution consultant, co-hosted a webinar to share training strategies for associations trying to adopt new software.

This webinar, “Onboarding Excellence: How to Help Your Staff Adopt New Software,” is now available on demand, and includes plenty of insights to help your team make new software onboarding easy and fun. Here are three key takeaways.

Software Onboarding: 3 Key Takeaways

Find a Passionate Trainer

Many associations opt for the “Train the Trainer” approach to software onboarding. This is a process in which a software vendor prepares a single association staff member to teach the rest of their staff.

This is a great method, but it requires a passionate association employee. This person must be a champion for the project, have a comfortable understanding of the software and have deep knowledge on how your association’s departments work.

The trainer needs to hit all three of those points for one reason: in 24 hours, people tend to forget 70 percent of the new information they just learned. With a passionate trainer, the learning experience will be engaging, increasing the likelihood of knowledge retention. That trainer will also be more willing to help his or her peers after the fact, if they forget one element or another of the training.

Use Your New Software Onboarding as a Team-building Exercise

Department-wide training is also popular among trade and professional associations during the software onboarding process, and it comes with an added benefit – team building.

Team building is still not a priority at many workplaces (just 39 percent of people surveyed believe that people in their own organization don’t collaborate enough).

With department-wide training, you’ll be able to teach entire departments at once, highlighting scenarios they’ll likely encounter within their departments. You’ll also be able to walk each department through the same learning process. This allows for team building and collaboration that staff may not experience in their day-to-day duties.

Learn by Example

While every association is unique, there’s a lot to learn from other organizations that have implemented a software solution before you.

During the webinar, Audrey highlighted one association that perfected its software adoption process by using three methods:

1. Association-wide training on the basic functionality and navigation of the new system
2. Core team training by type on specific modules and processes
3. Train the trainer for specific tasks to teach other staff members

Want to dig a little deeper into new software onboarding? Be sure to download the on-demand webinar.