Digital Transformation Adoption > The Key Ingredient to Sustain Momentum

The need for digital transformation has accelerated dramatically in recent years—with Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella noting as a example that two years’ worth of progress occurred in just two months at the onset of the pandemic. While the pace of innovation has been remarkable, companies who embarked on major transformations are not seeing a consistent ROI. In fact, approximately 20% of these same change initiatives lost value after implementation.
Your bottom line depends heavily on how well your business manages their large scale technology investments and the approach they take. Research shows that companies who excel at integrating digital transformations with effective change management are:

Four times more likely to meet deadlines
Six times more likely to hit their targets, and
Have a 1.6 times better chance of staying within budget.

Those who did not embed an effective change management approach by addressing the human side of transformation such as strategic and cultural alignment, collaboration, employee adoption, and behavioral reinforcement, risked seeing their digital efforts stall as teams naturally reverted to old habits.

Our exposure to various businesses across many industries primarily in the mid-market has demonstrated that workforce influence stands out as one of the most critical factors for a successful digital transformation. Recent surveys back this up as well with over 32% of business leaders pointing to employee adoption as a significant factor, with only 7% mentioning financing and 4% highlighting technology choices as more important. While many organizations know this, they still struggle to create change management plans that prepare their teams for the dramatic pace of change in how businesses function or excel.

Why the Workforce of Tomorrow Demands a New Approach

Employment demographisc have changed dramatically over the last several years requiring fundamental shifts in the approach organizations must adopt to manage change. Here are five key factors about workforces today and something you should examine within your own employment demographic:

The working-age population is contracting at a rate not seen since World War II, with Millennials now outnumbering Generation Z by three million.
The modern workplace now includes five generations working together with each group having their own unique preferences and working styles. For example, Baby Boomers value stability, while Gen Z focuses on flexibility and mental health and wants a fun workplace.
Employee priorities have undergone a fundamental change. Steelcase studied workers across 10 countries and found that lack of meaningful roles and alignment to their personal values lead to lower engagement and productivity.
Hybrid work has become the new standard. Statistics show that as of early 2025, approximately 30% of U.S. workers are engaged in hybrid work arrangements, typically working from the office three days a week.
Digital fluency is also rapidly becoming a skill gap. Employees who can’t adapt to new technologies impact their companies’ ability to remain competitive as business environments evolve.

These combined forces demand a complete rethinking of how your business approaches change management. Your next transformation success depends on examining and preparing your multigenerational, digital-savvy, and differently motivated workforce.

Challenges Modern Change Management Must Address

Here’s a sobering statistic: research shows that only 30% of organizational change initiatives are considered highly successful. Here’s why:

Resistance to change stands as a tough roadblock to progress. People don’t like unknowns. They stick to what they know and push back against changes that might threaten their job security. This pushback leads to lower productivity, negative attitudes, and sometimes direct opposition to new initiatives. A Boston Consulting Group study reveals that in the last two decades, only 26% of corporate transformations created value both short and long-term.
Leadership alignment failures create another huge obstacle. Many companies struggle because their leaders don’t agree on key issues, which makes setting clear expectations tough. According to a 2024 report by Changing Point, 51% of managers and employees state that their leaders do not outline clear success metrics for change, leading to confusion and inconsistent application following implementation.
Change fatigue and burnout have hit critical levels. Today’s employees must deal with an average of 10 company-wide changes each year – up from just two in 2016. Employee support for change has dropped sharply too, falling from 74% in 2016 to just 38%. This burnout leads to ‘checked out’ employees, an increase in sick days, workplace tension, cynicism, and consequently impacts productivity.
Inadequate communication and training complete the list of major hurdles. Many companies don’t explain why changes matter or how they’ll help. Employees who are not included, who lack information and training, feel unvalued, unprepared and will become uninvested. When they are not considered, you can expect to see increasing frustration and mistakes with new technologies and an overall lack of confidence.

Fixing these interconnected problems requires a detailed assessment of your current state and a thoughtful plan that considers your workforce demographic, gets both leaders and employees on the same page and ready to embrace ongoing change.

How Companies Are Building a Future-Ready Workforce

Smart organizations know that technology alone won’t prepare them to adapt to necessary change or take advantage of opportunities to advance in their market. They’re putting their money where it matters most, their people. Key to this is the development of new strategies that help to build workforces that are agile, adaptive, and capable of growing to tackle change in how work gets done.

Reskilling has also become essential for workforce readiness in today’s rapidly evolving job market. The World Economic Forum predicts that 44% of workers’ skills will be disrupted by AI within the next five years, emphasizing the urgency for organizations to proactively reskill their workforce in order to remain competitive.

Successful companies are preparing their future workforce through the following approaches:

Implementing data-driven workforce planning: This approach exploits analytics to spot future skills gaps and redesign work. They use this data to anticipate factors that affect their business and workforce.
Modernize learning strategies: This approach embeds learning directly into work routines instead of traditional one-time training programs to support employees’ learning skills right when they need them.
Adopt mindset-toolset-skillset frameworks: This approach builds future readiness by working on the proper mindset, toolset, and skillset required for the role.
Integrate change management with project management: From our consulting and strategy implementation experience, this combination truly works. And research shows 47% of organizations that combine these disciplines meet or exceed project goals, compared to just 30% that don’t.

Leadership styles are also evolving to support future-ready workforces with 70% of business leaders seeing emotional intelligence as vital for the future of work. When leaders create safe spaces for employees to experiment without fear, the result leads to increased participation in problem-solving and better adoption of change. Additionally, when companies support innovation across their workforce, they develop more capable, productive teams. Examples of this support include innovation labs, and solutioning/collaboration platforms, where employees can generate ideas, collaborate and stimulate learning and gain confidence in their value and contributions.

These approaches lead to resilient, adaptable workforces that thrive by adopting change as a common practice for sustainable growth.

Need Help?

The Poirier Group blends strategic thinking, technology and change enablement expertise to implement and guide organizations through complex transformations that lead to sustainable outcomes. Our collaborative approach ensures that your workforce is considered, involved and capable of adapting so that your next change initiative advances the progress and outcomes you require. Let’s connect to see what’s possible.

References

1. Harvard Business Review

2. Reworked

3. Culturally

4. Steelcase

5. Predictive Index

6. ProSci

7. HR Executive

8. Workforces Software

9. Learning Pool

10. Forbes

11. World Economic Forum

12. Deloitte

13. PWC

Digital Transformation Adoption > The Key Ingredient to Sustain Momentum

Why the Workforce of Tomorrow Demands a New Approach

Challenges Modern Change Management Must Address

How Companies Are Building a Future-Ready Workforce

Need Help?

References

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