Technology gifts as drivers for change

2012-10-24

A clever technology change management story about a government IT manager in the Netherlands who needed to upgrade Microsoft Office for his mostly over 45s workforce:

Had he planned a traditional roll-out, he would have faced complaints, training costs and surging traffic to the helpdesk. What he did instead was to provide all employees with the next of Office at Christmas time, as a gift from the employer to its employees, to install on their home computers and to play with. After six months what happened was that those same users came to him to beg for an upgrade of their Office version at work and, by then, they have already learned how to use it.

So by spending a few extra euro on additional licenses for home use, he has been saving a lot on training and support costs. And he has been doing so for years now.

While this cannot be generalized to any sort of change or technology innovation, it is a pretty smart way of doing things.

Shared by Andrea Di Maio.

Of course, this is very similar to what happens when someone buys an iPhone or iPad. Suddenly, they want to use them in the workplace too - except most IT users are buying these devices themselves.