Employees aren’t using the new software: six practical steps to drive adoption

Let’s start with a fictional example: a mid-sized manufacturing company moved its leave and request processes to a new portal. There was a launch meeting, everyone was given a username, and the slide deck was sent out by email. Two months later, HR is still manually entering leave requests that arrive on WhatsApp into the portal. Production-line staff say: “I don’t want to install anything on my phone; it’s easier to just message you.” Management blames the software, HR blames the employees, and the employees still don’t know what’s in it for them. This picture will be familiar to many companies moving to new systems, and the solution usually lies not in the software itself but in how the transition is managed.

Software adoption is the planned effort to get employees to genuinely use a new system in place of old habits. Handing out usernames and giving a presentation are only the start of that effort.

Why do employees resist a new system?

Resistance is usually not an attitude problem but a rational reaction. Employees don’t want to give up a way of working that already gets the job done for a new one they think won’t. The table below matches the phrases most often heard in practice with their real causes.

None of the causes in the table comes from employees’ unwillingness; all of them are gaps in how the transition was designed. So the solution is less about trying to persuade employees and more about making the new route easier than the old one, and the only valid one.

The transition also needs an owner. In many companies, the portal project starts in IT and stays there, yet adoption is the job of HR, internal communications and department managers. Appoint one person as transition lead: they collect the points where employees get stuck, say which problem sits with whom, and report to management in short weekly meetings on what is and isn’t working in the first weeks. A transition without an owner runs into every cause in the table at once.

Why are Excel and WhatsApp habits so hard to break?

Because they genuinely work. Writing on WhatsApp is fast, and adding a row in Excel needs nobody’s permission. In a small team these routes are often enough, and imposing a new system on employees creates unnecessary friction. The problem arises with work that needs a record: who gave approval and when, what the balance is, at what stage a request is waiting. That information gets lost in the message stream. The aim of adoption is not to ban WhatsApp but to move work that needs a record onto a route where it is recorded, and to leave chat as chat.

How do you drive software adoption? Six practical steps

1. Start with a single process. The example company had launched leave, asset assignment and visitor management in the same week. On the second attempt it started with leave only: a process that affects everyone and has clear rules. Once the first habit had taken hold, the other modules were added to the same login.
2. Close the old route on a set date. When two routes are open at the same time, people choose the easier one. The sentence “from this date, leave requests will only be processed through the portal” must be clear; HR should politely redirect requests that arrive on WhatsApp to the portal.
3. Don’t make people install an app. Asking employees to install something on their phone is the first and biggest barrier. With a tool that opens in the browser, employees tap the link and sign in; there are no installation, update or storage issues.
4. Guide people with an announcement. Communicate the transition date, the employee’s benefit and the first step in a single announcement, to the right audience and through the right channel. Use the report to see who has not seen it, and reach those people separately.
5. Plan the training and record attendance. Plan a short user session like any other training: assign participants, send notifications, take attendance. Open a second session for those who missed it.
6. Start with managers. As long as managers approve verbally, employees won’t use the system. Have managers use it first, with approval given only in the system; collect and fix the sticking points in the first weeks.

Managers are the most critical link in the list, because employees usually look not at the system but at how their own manager behaves. If a manager approves a leave request verbally in the corridor, the employee has no reason left to log in to the portal. Managers need to hear two things: approving in the system does not create extra work for them — on the contrary, it lets them see their team’s leave and pending requests in one place; and a verbal approval, because there is no record of it, can put them in a difficult position too. Once managers are used to it, employees follow.

What changed at the example company on the second attempt?

The fictional company planned the transition from the start. In the first step, only the leave process was opened. An announcement went to all production-line staff by SMS; the report showed who had not seen it, and shift supervisors contacted those people separately. Short user sessions were scheduled around shift times, attendance was recorded, and a second session was opened for those who could not attend. In the first week, managers gave approvals only through the portal. Because the closing date of the old channel was clearly stated in the announcement, HR could politely redirect requests arriving on WhatsApp to the portal. This is not presented as a success story, only as an example of how the steps can work together.

Guiding with announcements: who didn’t see it, who wasn’t reached?

Communication is the most frequently skipped step of a transition. YazSis KurumsalPortal’s Announcements & News Management module targets announcements by person, team, department or location and publishes them by email and SMS as well as in the portal. Production-line staff without a corporate email address also receive the announcement by SMS; messages are sent from the organisation’s own SMTP and NetGSM accounts. The publication time can be scheduled in advance, and read receipts and the distribution report show who opened the announcement. This closes the gap between saying “we told everyone” and saying “it reached these people and not those”.

Sample transition announcement: “From Monday, leave requests will only be accepted through the portal. Open the link in your phone’s browser and submit your request in a few steps; you will see your remaining leave balance and which approval your request is waiting for in the same place. If you get stuck, message your shift supervisor or HR.”

How do you train users on enterprise software?

The most effective training is short, role-specific and built around a real task. Instead of explaining every menu, have employees carry out the three or four tasks they will actually use, once, together with you. For managers that is the approval screen; for HR, reporting. KurumsalPortal’s Training Management module is used to plan staff training, assign participants, send notifications, record attendance and report on participation. If you also record the new-system session as a training event in this module, you can see in one place who attended, who didn’t and who needs a second session.

Which signs should you watch in the first weeks?

• Is HR still having to enter requests that arrive by WhatsApp or email manually?
• Do managers give approval in the system, or verbally?
• According to the announcement’s distribution report, have most of the targeted people seen it?
• Has a second session been opened for employees the attendance record shows missed the training?
• Are the points where employees get stuck being collected and fixed?
• Has the closing date for the old channel been announced, and is it being enforced?

To plan training and attendance, see the Training Management page; to see all modules, visit the KurumsalPortal page.