In a piece for Entrepreneur, contributor Himanshu Sareen examines what he calls "The Legacy Users You Might Meet In Enterprise Software Heaven." It's a facetious title, but the behavior profiled in the piece rings true and applies to many with legacy application concerns.
As Sareen breaks it down, there are three categories of employees within a company with respect to IT modernization: champions, who will support application updates, resistors who won't, and the "potential ambassadors" in the middle who have the potential to change their minds if approached correctly.
When it comes to handling legacy application changes, a company can benefit by identifying how many of each kind of employee they manage, Sareen says, and then using that to their advantage. Getting a good word out about the project can reduce anxieties and pave the way for adoption later on.
"Hearing a colleague discuss the benefits of the new system is often more convincing than listening to a consultant," he writes. "By connecting employees with fellow colleagues who have already been convinced of the project's value, hesitant staffers might approach the new system with optimism instead of concern."
Of course, another key part of making applications transfer successfully is an IT modernization plan with minimum risk and maximum benefit. But before implementation takes place, companies need to take stock of their current systems and software environment, test everything and put a schedule into action. This period can also include a survey of the employee attitudes within your company so you know what to expect and who to put in charge of software functions.