How to Get Started with Guided Attention Technology
Because guided attention technology creates more effective experiences for your existing tech stack, there’s no need to replace or augment the critical business systems you rely on. That makes it easy to get started.
5 steps to getting started with guided attention technology:
#1 Vision
Strategies only succeed when they ‘re based on a planned outcome. Begin by identifying both short and long-term goals. You can do this by asking questions such as:
What does the ideal employee experience look like?
How do you want the future of your organization to operate in relation to the employee experience?
What experience do you want specific populations to have? (e.g., Sales, Production etc.)
How should people work to achieve the best results for themselves, their teams, and the business?
What should their relationship with workplace technologies look like?
How should they feel about their interactions with technology?
This new vision must be contrasted to the current state. Take steps to uncover the biggest friction points affecting your workforce and pull together a framework of the moments that matter to each specific persona in the company, as well as a lifecycle of employees from onboarding to offboarding.
Additional questions you should ask at this stage of the process, either through creating employee personas or conducting user studies, include:
What are our current business objectives?
How can our employee experience efforts be aligned with our company goals?
What does success look like?
How do employees feel about their interactions with the digital workplace today?
What are the greatest productivity drains in their day?
Where do the most disruptions and distractions occur?
What are the key friction points they struggle with? (e.g., help and Support, finding key answers, approving requests)
What segments of the employee lifecycle are most difficult and frustrating (e.g., pre-hire acquisition, onboarding, engagement, offboarding)?
What key ‘moments that matter’ are hamstrung by technology (e.g., changing a last name, promotion approvals, recognition).
#2 & 3 Plan & Build
Once you have a firm understanding of the future and the current state, begin to determine which pain points should be addressed first. This starts with understanding all of use cases arising from the Vision stage.
Next, use cases should weighted and measured against one another to understand which will:
Resolve the greatest pain points
Have an impact on a clearly defined audience (managers, frontline workers etc.)
Address a clear priority based on the vision and current state
Have resources and can achieve stakeholder buy-in
Deliver the highest levels of value by addressing a top goal of the organization
Success requires knowing that not all use cases can (or should) be delivered at launch. Understand who will see the benefits first. Then you can determine if it makes more sense to move forward with a “land and expand” strategy, or if the program should be launched to the entire organization.
A well-vetted plan and roadmap for high-value use cases becomes an invaluable guide for launch, helping to determine what will be delivered on day one and what will be deployed gradually over the course of the next year.
#4 Launch
Now is the time to deploy guided attention technology within your organization. A large part of the success of this stage is how effectively the launch is communicated and celebrated prior to the actual launch date.
Make sure there’s a strong push to share the change and communicate the benefits this program will have on the employee experience. This helps showcase the value of the technology and educate workers about the purpose of the technology and experiences, both before, and after. Value to the organization and individual should also be emphasized throughout the communication period to ensure employees understand that this represents a paradigm shift in the way they interact with technology and systems.
#5 Measure & Repeat
At predetermined intervals, take the time to measure the impact guided attention technology is having on your employee experience.
Has the needle moved, are employees working more productively?
What has user sentiment been?
Are there valuable stories and anecdotes to be shared?
How can things be improved?
With these learnings in hand, optimize experiences as needed to ensure that the digital workplace is always tailored to meet the evolving nature of work.