Selecting the right marketing automation system can be gruesome. Changing or adopting a new marketing automation system is even more gruesome. When leaders decide to acquire a new marketing automation system, they should be effectively enabled to take their teams through the transition process as seamlessly as possible.
Leaders can be effectively enabled for the change by following these tips. 1. Involve the main stakeholders in the decision process Marketing automation systems are employed by several stakeholders in any business and involving them from the very onset of deciding on the best automation system is imperative. These stakeholders include sales, marketing, data and IT, who should all be involved in the selection process and implementation as well. They should be adequately trained on the system so that they are able to assist and oversee its implementation and use by teams. 2. Prepare to migrate your marketing data properly Leaders should ensure that their data is properly migrated into the new marketing automation platform. This will help ease the transition once the organisation starts using the marketing automation tools. It is common to find that some of the data is incomplete or of low quality. A proactive approach to data strategy and management needs to be taken to ensure the data that moves into the new marketing automation system is relevant and useful. Otherwise, you put garbage in and you get garbage out. 3. Prepare corresponding metrics and set goals for the transition Leaders should proactively establish goals and then put together performance indicators that will be used to monitor how the team is progressing towards achieving set objectives. Changing into a new marketing automation system should not be rushed. It is a large project and it should be evaluated and adjustments made every step of the way so that the business gets the most from it. Goals should be set with a realistic phasing, taken into consideration the time it will take to build and migrate programs and upskill the team. 4. Engage IT in the transition process Marketing leaders ought to work closely with their tech leaders when transitioning into a new marketing automation system. The process requires tech guidance from evaluation to deployment and maintenance. IT leaders can help in developing a cost-benefit analysis for the services the automation system offers. IT professionals can also offer guidance on the best automation system to go for, customised to the organisations unique set of needs. The biggest potential pitfall when it comes to switching marketing automation vendors involves issues with technology integrations. Addressing existing and unforeseen issues from the very onset can save the business a lot of time and money. 5. Identify Change Sponsors and Agents Leaders and teams are often not effectively enabled to adopt and drive Marketing Automation Change. It is essential that leaders become sponsors of change, helping to create and communicate a vision for the future state and a compelling case for "why" change is required. Marketing teams are change fatigued, so leaders need to clearly demonstrate the "what's in it for me" for teams, and paint a picture of the future state that inspires action and adoption. Change agents within the team need to be identified and activated in order to embed the change. Collagis recognises a gap exists between technology implementation and the effective embedding of people and process to support sustainable and effective MarTech change. Collagis can support your organisation in bringing best practice process change and program management toolkits and approaches to help enable Marketing Automation change. We can customise these to suit your unique needs and challenges during marketing automation transition process. Want to know more about how to effectively manage Marketing Automation change? Contact Sheree on sheree.morrison@collagis.com.au. We'd love to hear from you. The Challenge. Do you find yourself wasting time looking for things at work? Whether it’s paper or electronic files the frustration that comes with not being able to find that document or file is stressful and can reduce effective output.
The Cost. In short, the cost of not being able to place your hands on that item of work you need is time. Some people we work with waste up to an hour a day trying to find things. What could you do with an hour of time back in your work day? Simple tips to help you find things in rapid speed
Whatever approach you use make sure that it’s serving you and not the other way around! Want to know more about how you can improve your productivity in the workplace? Contact us at info@collagis.com.au OR visit collagis.com.au/pep to find productivity programs for your workplace. We'd love to hear from you. [1] https://hbr.org/2012/01/tip-for-getting-more-organized.html [2] https://www.whatsbestnext.com/2008/12/filing-vs-piling/ [3] https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newHTE_85.htm By Andrew Gallaway
The Challenge. What do you feel when you're in the zone - reading, writing, thinking - at work? Fulfilled, purposeful, in control? How do you feel when someone interrupts you in the zone? Frustrated, important, stressed, willing to please? Mixed feelings right? That's probably because there are 'good' interruptions and 'wasteful' interruptions. The good interruptions are when you're being informed of something that's urgent and important. The 'whoop, whoop' of the alarm is a great interruption if the building is on fire! But the wasteful interruptions can be damaging to an organisation because everyone loses - the interrupter and the interrupted. Neither is doing productive important work during the wasteful interruption. The Cost. Three interruptions per hour can cost you up to 30 minutes of time when you consider how long it takes to deal with the interruption and then get your mind back into work.[1] 5 Simple Tips to find your zone during work time 1. If someone comes into your workspace and interrupts you it’s likely that they consider the issue important; they might even be super pumped and excited. But how important and urgent is it compared to what you’re doing right now. The first step is to assess the nature of the interruption. “How can I help you?” If the matter is more urgent, drop what you’re doing and deal with it. If it isn’t, then could you make a later time that day to talk? 2. Consider saving up those important but not urgent conversations for another time. Collect your thoughts, emails, issues in a folder and take them to a 1:1 meeting with a colleague or a group meeting where the session is planned. It could be once or more per week. Cover off the matters you and your colleague have saved up during that session. You'll be amazed at how much time you save by batching those discussions. 3. Recognise if there’s a problem with interruptions in your workplace. This is important because interruptions can happen quite unconsciously and can become an organisational habit. So, awareness is the first step. 4. Talk to each other! If there’s a problem with interruptions talk to the team and get buy-in to recognise the costs. 5. Find the right place to work. At Collagis we believe that work needs to be done in the right workspace. If you have to do work where you need to concentrate and not be disturbed, could you book a meeting room to work in for an hour or so? Tell someone where you are going just in case and ask not to be disturbed unless it's an emergency. You'll only be gone an hour or so! Finding the right environment during work hours is kind of like coming into work early or staying late because that's the only way you can get work done; no one else is around to bother you. Think about it! Why are you doing that? Work in work hours as much as you can by creating the right conditions for you to get the work done. Want to know more about how you can improve your productivity in the workplace? Contact us at info@collagis.com.au OR visit collagis.com.au/pep to find productivity programs for your workplace. We'd love to hear from you. [1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/markmurphy/2016/10/30/interruptions-at-work-are-killing-your-productivity/#4fa3968f1689 Author: Andrew Gallaway
The Challenge: Do you find some people a joy to work with and others...well, not so? It could be that you have unrecognised preferences in the way each of you work. The Cost: When work preferences are at odds it can lead to frustration, stress, wasted time and in the worst case conflict at work. This situation is no way for a team to progress and be effective. 6 simple tips to discover and embrace work preferences
Want help to implement your work preferences review? Speak to Collagis today about how you can make a real difference to your team's effectiveness today. Contact us at info@collagis.com.au or visit www.collagis.com.au/pep to find productivity programs for your workplace. We'd love to hear from you. Rapid review: By S Edwards May 2017 What is the future of Work Environments? Read below for an academic review from Rapid Context on global trends and the benefits of workplace environment innovation. Re-inventing the work space Innovative workspaces are born out of several generations of business stimulation efforts [1], with literature stretching back to the 1940’s indicating that businesses have always been searching for ways to create the optimum work environment that produces and retains highly productive employees [2]. Companies such as Google, Microsoft and Westpac continue to incorporate these approaches as a way to stay relevant and attractive in an age of redefined workspaces [2, 3]. Office space is not just an asset, but needs to be viewed as a strategic tool for growth [5]. Literature has shown that work environments that are uncomfortable and induce stress directly impact on employee’s sense of well-being, productivity and quality of work [6,7]. Research by Empirica and Hassell found that workplace design is a significant factor in attraction and retention. It impacts on the extent to which employees connect and identify with their colleagues and the greater organisation. It suggests that investing in workplace design and organisational culture is a more cost effective strategy for talent acquisition than offering higher salaries. Global trends in the development of innovative environments are varied, with approaches differing for urban versus regional, and large organisations versus small [6]. As the term “innovation” implies, there is no one answer to the perfect work place and thus it is important that companies take the time to understand what they are trying to achieve by changing the space [3, 8, 9]. Hills and Levy suggest criteria for reflection include workability, comfort, occupational density, the need for privacy, control over the environment, adjacency to colleagues and functionality [8]. With further literature suggesting all optimum work environments need a balance of spaces specifically designed for collaboration, modifiability, intellectual work and solitude [10-12]. Research has shown that flexible work arrangements and the work-life balance they produce are inextricably linked to employee attraction and retention [9, 10, 13, 14]. The use of flexible work options within an organisation means an increase in the need for appropriate technology, with the ability to be able to collaborate and communicate with colleagues regardless of location a key element to a FWA’s success [15-17]. Projecting the needs of future employees can be daunting. An International survey conducted by the Society for human Resource Management (SHRM) found that the majority of over 480 executives believed the top challenges for the year 2022 would be attracting, retaining and rewarding the best workers [18]. By the year 2025 it is anticipated that the contingent of workers known as ‘Millenials’ and born between 1980 and 2000 will make up 75% of the workforce [19]. Their career aspirations, attitudes about work and knowledge of new technologies are vastly different than those who are on the verge of leaving the workforce [20, 21]. Employers need to be alert and agile and respond to the changes or face being left behind by their competitors [22]. Recommendations: - Complete survey to ascertain what employees value most in their workplace, regardless of position. Want to know more about what to do next to build a workplace of the future? Contact us at info@collagis.com.au. We'd love to hear from you.
References:
1 Foertsch, A.P. (2014). Workplace Innovation Today. http://www.naiop.org/en/Research/Our- Research/Reports/Workplace-Innovation-Today-The-Coworking-Center.aspx 2 Brookes, M. J., & Kaplan, A. (1972). The office environment: Space planning and affective behavior. Human factors, 14(5), 373-391. 3 Oksanen, K., & Ståhle, P. (2013). Physical environment as a source for innovation: investigating the attributes of innovative space. Journal of knowledge management, 17(6), 815-827. 4 Cummins, C. Westpac raises the bar at new Barangaroo digs. January 29 2016 The Sydney Morning Herald http://www.smh.com.au/business/property/westpac-raises-the-bar-at-new-barangaroo-digs- 20160118-gm8g4d.html 5 Waber, B., Magnolfi, J., & Lindsay, G. (2014). Workspaces that move people. Harvard Business Review, October 2014. https://hbr.org/2014/10/workspaces-that-move-people 6 Vischer, J. C., & Wifi, M. (2017). The Effect of Workplace Design on Quality of Life at Work. In Handbook of Environmental Psychology and Quality of Life Research (pp. 387-400). Springer International Publishing. 7 Hassell & Empirica, 2014. Research findings: Does workplace design affect employee attraction? http://hassell.efront-flare.com.au/docs/20141218_research_workplaceattaction_webversion_lr.pdf 8 Hills, R., & Levy, D. (2014). Workspace design and fit-out: what knowledge workers value. Property Management, 32(5), 415-432. 9 Kossek, E. E., & Thompson, R. J. (2016). Workplace Flexibility: Integrating Employer and Employee Perspectives to Close the Research–Practice Implementation Gap. The Oxford Handbook of Work and Family, 255. 10 Perlow, L. A., & Kelly, E. L. (2014). Toward a model of work redesign for better work and better life. Work and Occupations, 41(1), 111-134. 11 Joseph, J. (2016). Do Open/Collaborative Work Environments Increase, Decrease or Tend To Keep Employee Satisfaction Neutral? 12 Congdon, C., Flynn, D., Redman, M. (2014). Balancing “We” and “Me”: The best collaborative spaces also support solitude. Harvard Business Review October 2014. https://hbr.org/2014/10/balancing-we-and-me-the-best-collaborative-spaces-also-support-solitude 13 Ernst and Young 2015. Work-Life Challenges across generations. http://www.ey.com/us/en/about-us/our-people-and-culture/ey-work-life-challenges-across- generations-global-study 14 Timms, C., Brough, P., O'Driscoll, M., Kalliath, T., Siu, O. L., Sit, C., & Lo, D. (2015). Flexible work arrangements, work engagement, turnover intentions and psychological health. Asia Pacific Journal of Human Resources, 53(1), 83-103. 15 Blok, M., Groenesteijn, L., Formanoy, M., De Korte, E., & Vink, P. (2010). Innovative ways of working: A comparison of a traditional and a flexible office environment on office space use, performance, privacy and satisfaction. na. 16 McNall, L. A., Masuda, A. D., & Nicklin, J. M. (2009). Flexible work arrangements, job satisfaction, and turnover intentions: The mediating role of work-to-family enrichment. The Journal of psychology, 144(1), 61-81. 17 Johns, T., & Gratton, L. (2013). The third wave of virtual work. Harvard Business Review, 91(1), 66-73. 18 Leonard, B., SHRM Poll: HR’s Top Challenges in 10 Years Have a Familiar Ring, in Society for Human Resource Management. . 2012. 19 Donston-Miller, D. (2016). Workforce 2020: What you need to know Now. https://www.forbes.com/sites/workday/2016/05/05/workforce-2020-what-you-need-to-know- now/#7e46a6db2d63 20 Kosoff, M. (2015). Millennials have a clear favourite when asked which tech company is their ‘ideal employer’. Business Insider, May 24, 2015. https://www.businessinsider.com.au/millennials- want-to-work-at-google-2015-5?r=US&IR=T 21 PWC, A. (2011). Millennials at work. Reshaping the workplace. 22 Canon (2015). Work in Evolution: A Canon Research Report https://www.canon.com.au/fastbusiness/the-evolution-of-the-australian-workplace-research-report Additional suggested Resources: The 4th Annual Next Generation Workplace Summit 2017 https://next-generation- workplace.iqpc.com.au/agenda- ff?MAC=24239.004INF_GPPC&gclid=CNWQvanc8dMCFZeSvQodcecBew |