Why Does Adoption Stall No Matter How Much I Train Them?
Customers can finish training and still not adopt new software, because training and adoption are separate jobs. Training teaches people how the product works. Adoption means people change how they do their daily work, and that depends on conditions in their workplace after the training ends. Four of those conditions are habit, what switching costs them, what the change does to their role, and how much else is on their plate.
The third training session had good attendance and good feedback. Usage the following month looked the same as before it.
What Is the Difference between Training and Adoption?
Training gives people knowledge and skill. Adoption is people using the product for their real work, week after week, once the training is over.
Researchers have kept those two apart for a long time. Timothy Baldwin and Kevin Ford, in a 1988 review in Personnel Psychology, defined transfer of training as using what was learned at work and keeping it up over time.
They named three things that decide whether transfer happens. The trainee, the training itself, and the work environment the trainee goes back to. A session can teach well and people can still not use what they learned, if the work environment doesn't support it.
That is also why the feedback form misleads. Brian Blume and colleagues, in a 2010 meta-analysis in the Journal of Management, found that transfer measured right after training, by the trainee, came out higher than transfer measured later or reported by someone else. A good feedback form after a session doesn't tell you whether people will use the product in their work.
Why Do CSMs Keep Booking More Training?
A CSM can schedule, run, and count a training session without anyone at the customer changing anything first. The other things that affect adoption sit inside the customer's company, with their managers, their routines, and their workload. When usage stays flat, another session is the step a CSM can take alone, so it gets repeated.
The research on why people use a new system points somewhere else. Viswanath Venkatesh and colleagues, in a 2003 MIS Quarterly paper that combined the main technology-acceptance models, identified four things that predict whether people intend to use a system and then use it:
- how much it will help them do their job
- how much effort it takes
- whether people they respect use it
- whether their workplace supports using it
Training helps with the second one, how much effort the product takes to use. The other three depend on the customer's work, their colleagues, and their company.
When Is More Training the Right Fix?
Sometimes it is. A new group of hires joined after the first round. A workflow the team depends on was never shown. The product changed and the old session no longer matches the screen.
There is a quick way to tell. Ask a user who isn't using the product to do one real task with it while you watch. If they can't, they need training, and a short session on that one task is the right booking. If they can do it and still use the old way day to day, the gap is in one of the four barriers in the next section, and another session won't close it.
Rebecca Grossman and Eduardo Salas, in a 2011 review of what drives training transfer, listed conditions at work that shape the outcome. Support from the people around the learner, a real chance to use the skill, and follow-up afterward. Once a user can do the task, work on those conditions next.
Which Barriers Does Training Not Fix?
Four barriers can stop adoption even when the training went well.
Habit. The old routine runs by default because the same moment in the day cues it. Phillippa Lally and colleagues, in a 2010 study in the European Journal of Social Psychology, followed people repeating a new daily behavior and found that it took weeks to months of repetition before it ran without thought, with wide differences between people.
In an account, habit looks like the spreadsheet still open beside the new tool. What moves it is a prompt at that exact moment in the day, and a first use small enough to repeat.
Switching cost. The person weighs what changing will cost them. Hee-Woong Kim and Atreyi Kankanhalli, in a 2009 MIS Quarterly study of a new enterprise system, found that the perceived cost of switching drove resistance, and that colleagues' opinions and the user's own confidence fed into that cost.
In an account, it shows up as a promise to move over after quarter close. What moves it is a smaller first switch. One report or one step, with the old version still available that week.
Role. The tool changes what someone's job looks like or how their expertise is seen. Liette Lapointe and Suzanne Rivard, in a 2005 MIS Quarterly study of clinical system rollouts, found that people first judge what a new system means for their own situation, and that individual reactions can spread into group resistance.
In an account, it can look like the most experienced user moving last. What moves it is a visible place for that person's knowledge in the new setup, agreed with their manager.
Workload. The team has absorbed several changes this year, and yours is one more. Gartner's research, summarized in Harvard Business Review in 2023, found employees' willingness to support change dropping as the number of changes landing on them grew.
In an account, it can look like a team skipping the practice time or asking to push the start to next quarter. What moves it is protected time. Ask the manager for a set block each week for the team to use the new tool, and get it onto their calendars.
What Does Adoption Look Like once the Barriers Are Handled?
The first use is small and happens at the point in the day where the old routine used to start. The first switch is one report or one step, with the old version still available for a week. The most experienced user has a part in the setup that uses what they know. The manager has set aside time each week for the team to use the tool.
Pick your most-trained, least-adopted account and run the task test with two of its users. If they can do the task, write down which of the four barriers applies to each person who has to change, and plan your next conversation with that account around it.
References & Related Reading
- Transfer of Training: A Review and Directions for Future Research, Timothy T. Baldwin and J. Kevin Ford, Personnel Psychology, 1988.
- Transfer of Training: A Meta-Analytic Review, Brian D. Blume, J. Kevin Ford, Timothy T. Baldwin, and Jason L. Huang, Journal of Management, 2010.
- User Acceptance of Information Technology: Toward a Unified View, Viswanath Venkatesh, Michael G. Morris, Gordon B. Davis, and Fred D. Davis, MIS Quarterly, 2003.
- The transfer of training: what really matters, Rebecca Grossman and Eduardo Salas, International Journal of Training and Development, 2011.
- How are habits formed: Modelling habit formation in the real world, Phillippa Lally, Cornelia H. M. van Jaarsveld, Henry W. W. Potts, and Jane Wardle, European Journal of Social Psychology, 2010.
- Investigating User Resistance to Information Systems Implementation: A Status Quo Bias Perspective, Hee-Woong Kim and Atreyi Kankanhalli, MIS Quarterly, 2009.
- A Multilevel Model of Resistance to Information Technology Implementation, Liette Lapointe and Suzanne Rivard, MIS Quarterly, 2005.
- Employees Are Losing Patience with Change Initiatives, Cian O Morain and Peter Aykens (Gartner), Harvard Business Review, 2023.
