I’m not a cat person. I’ve lived with a few, sure. But if I’m choosing, I’ll take a dog any day of the week. Dogs, for the most part, listen, adapt to change, and respond well to training. They’re eager to engage and excited when you walk in the room. Cats? They observe. They decide. They comply if and when it suits them. They’re independent and largely unbothered by your goals for the day.
In HR, when we roll out a new system – a fresh HCM platform, self-service onboarding, digital performance management – we often want dog-like behavior. We expect users to jump in (eagerly!), learn quickly, and adjust their workflows accordingly. But what we frequently get is cat energy: cautious observation, minimal engagement, and a sense of “I’ll get to it when I feel like it.”
If we don’t plan for that gap in behavior, if we don’t anticipate the human variables in tech adoption, our shiny new system becomes just another underutilized tool. HR technology adoption isn’t about enthusiasm. It’s about design, communication, and follow-through.
Why Systems Fail: Four Culprits
Even the most robust, intuitive HR tech can flop if people don’t use it. Typically, adoption breaks down for one (or more) of the following reasons:
- End-user indifference
- Ineffective training
- Inadequate communication
- Limited accountability
I once walked into a company where, on payday, employees queued in HR to have their paychecks printed out for them. (This was within the very recent past. I am not kidding.) Never mind that the company had invested in self-service tech years earlier. The kiosks were dusty. The logins long forgotten.
Why? Because the four culprits above had taken root. There was no structured training, no follow-up, no accountability, and employees had collectively decided to opt out. So HR and payroll staff kept doing manual work they weren’t supposed to be doing anymore – all while the company continued paying licensing fees for a tool that few employees used..
It took targeted intervention – a shift in expectations, updated processes, and a bit of tough love – to correct course. But it also required rethinking the company’s approach to HR technology adoption. Not as an event, but as a long-term behavior change.
4 x Four: Attacking the Four Culprits
1. Start at the Start
Effective adoption begins during system selection, not implementation. Before you even sign a contract, ask: “Who will actually use this system?” (i.e. not just the HR team, but employees, managers, and front-line leaders). “What do they need? What do they fear?”
If you want engagement later, bring those voices in early. Involve a cross-section of end users in demos. Let your tech skeptics ask questions and seek feedback from departments who’ll rely on the system day-to-day. This isn’t about consensus – it’s about insight.
Map your rollout thoughtfully. Some organizations thrive with a full-system launch while others need a phased approach. At one organization, we launched payroll and core HR in October, followed by benefits, recruiting, and finally, performance management modules over several months. That intentional pacing gave users time to adapt and build confidence before we layered in more change.
Also: consider your internal brand. HR tech is rarely exciting to non-HR people. The system’s usefulness must be clear from day one. Define what success looks like – and how you’ll measure it.
2. Communicate Early. Communicate Often.
Too often, the communication plan consists of one launch email and a few slide decks. That’s not a plan. That’s a half-hearted formality.
Start with getting your messaging clear so you can explain “what’s in it” for the users. Shorter workflows? 24/7 access? Fewer paper forms? Tie every communication to a benefit that feels real. Abstract promises like “efficiency” or “innovation” won’t cut it so show them exactly what’s changing – and why it matters.
In addition, make sure to vary your communication channels. Get the message out via all-hands meetings, department huddles, Slack updates and good old-fashioned emails and intranet landing pages. Create micro-training videos that include screen grabs and previews to make the unfamiliar less intimidating. And make sure your leaders are reinforcing the message; if HR is the only voice promoting the system, users will treat it like an HR project – not a business imperative.
Naturally, you need to be prepared for resistance. At one all-hands meeting discussing an upcoming HR tech launch (with more employee self-service capabilities), an employee asked, deadpan, “So if I’m doing all this myself now, what is HR going to be doing?”
Mildly antagonistic? Perhaps. But it also opened the door for a bigger conversation about empowerment, transparency, and rethinking how we all interact with systems.
3. Train with Intention (and Follow Through)
Not all training is created equal, and not all vendors support training the same way. Before implementation, ask what training resources are available – for every user type. If the vendor provides little or nothing, that burden falls on you.
Decide early: Will your training be formal or informal? Self-paced or live? Collaborative or self-guided? Most importantly, make it contextual. Don’t train in a vacuum – train users in workflows they’ll actually use.
Consider using beta testers by recruiting employees to test-drive the system pre-launch. Their experience will then help you design training that speaks to the actual user, not the power-user. You should also consider creating and maintaining support materials: FAQs, user guides, and how-to videos and ensure they are readily accessible to all users.
Part of training is ensuring that employees begin using the system as soon as possible after you go-live. At one company, we incentivized employees going in and reviewing (and updating!) their personal profiles (all those new fields of data that had null values to map over) with a simple contest. They logged in, completed their profiles/entered data, and had a chance to win gifts cards and prizes. It wasn’t groundbreaking, but it got people in the system and once there, they became less likely to revert to old habits.
4. Monitor, Adjust, and Reinforce
Go live is not the end. It’s the beginning of the next phase for this is when you monitor usage. Are employees logging in? Are managers completing tasks? Where are people getting stuck? Use your data to drive targeted support. If, for example, 40% of users are resetting passwords weekly, that’s probably a systemic issue – not a user failure.
Your goal is to build familiarity through repeated, meaningful use which you can accomplish by doing things such as keeping the experience dynamic. Celebrate milestones, embed feedback loops (user satisfaction surveys?) and don’t let the system fade into the background once launch buzz wears off. Repetition builds confidence. Confidence drives adoption.
*****
Technology only works if people use it, and HR systems are no exception. Adoption isn’t about pushing people toward compliance – it’s about designing an experience they can navigate, trust, and benefit from.
When we treat system implementation, roll-out and user adoption like a change initiative instead of a chore-filled checkbox, we quickly realize we aren’t just launching a tool.
We’re changing how work gets done.
*****
