Every digital interaction behind a screen depends on the Operating System (OS). It is the most fundamental element of the Digital Employee Experience (DEX).
But IT pros are understandably apprehensive about their inevitable Windows 11 migration as so many things can go wrong; and with every failure comes additional delays, costs and frustrations – both for IT and for employees.
But avoiding failure doesn’t simply mean being technically ready, it also means having employee buy-in. While a Windows 11 migration may be your top priority, it is not for employees. Resistance to change is real, and employees unfamiliar with Windows 11 or migrated without proper context and guidance will feel lost, irritated, and more likely to contact IT for support.
The only way to fight resistance to change is through communication.
Unfortunately, communication has never really been IT’s strong suit.
Fortunately, we’ve tailored our unique engagement technology to provide clear value before, during, and after a Windows 11 migration.
Here are 6 examples of how our customers are using Nexthink Engage to reduce risk, gather key feedback and ensure Windows 11 end-user satisfaction.
1) Pre-Migration Engagement: Readiness
Windows 11’s strict new hardware requirements might mean not every device is ready to go. In some cases, a simpler—and cheaper—upgrade is all you need (explore our Windows 11 readiness solution to see what we mean).
But scheduling the right time to upgrade the device memory with the impacted employees can be tedious. In this example, a targeted engagement campaign was sent to all employees whose devices did not have enough memory for Windows 11. This targeted campaign provided an easy path to upgrade by simplifying and accelerating the migration process.
2) Pre-Migration Engagement: Pilot Identification
A pilot is only as good as its participants, which is why finding the best pilot candidates is crucial. Not only should you test out compatibility across different scenarios, but you should ensure selected candidates provide useful feedback before migrating your entire user base.
Combined with automatic persona identification, this campaign ensures chosen candidates are willing to participate in the pilot. By opting in, these employees will be much more attentive during the process and will drastically improve the response rate and accuracy of any feedback campaigns.
3) In-Migration Engagement: Preparation & Backups
Many employees use offline backups, outdated programs or non-compliant software to backup files and preferences. When migrating, these faulty backups could results in losing your “favorites” tab or worse, losing critical files.
This example shows how IT can automate engagement campaigns just before employees migrate to double-check and remind them to backup their files to avoid unnecessary data loss.
4) In-Migration Engagement: Welcome Tips and Guidelines
Windows 11 comes with a range of new UX and UI features. While exciting for some, less digitally savvy employees might find the new layout unfamiliar and confusing. This can be a big source of frustration, leading to some employees asking for more IT help.
This example shows how IT can schedule Engage campaigns to deploy when an employee opens Windows 11 for the first time. It can provide key tips and guidelines to educate users about new features and reduce the sense of unfamiliarity.
Here, IT decided to highlight Snap Assist features and the new taskbar, but it is highly flexible and different IT teams can decide what they deem more important to educate users about.
5) Post-Migration Engagement: Migration Feedback
Although everything might look ready and stable from an IT perspective, the actual migration process from the employee’s perspective may be different.
In addition, IT support might encounter problems in isolation to the rest of the IT department – long wait times, lost files, poor communication… whatever those subjective problems might be, your organization’s data center won’t be able to catch all of them.
Here, a campaign was created to ask early-adopter candidates about their migration process and patch up any blind spots or weaknesses before migrating the rest of their colleagues.
6) Post-Migration Engagement: Windows 11 Feedback
Migration success must be defined by both performance and experience metrics. That is, are employees actually enjoying their new OS experience?
Gathering sentiment feedback to correlate with technical metrics enables IT to proactively identify hidden issues unreported by employees, as well as report on the real success of their migration project.
Ultimately, you want to make sure you keep the communication channels open with your employees and put them at the center of your migration process. By doing so, you’ll gain the type of visibility to quickly detect previously hidden issues and manage to drive a smart adoption strategy that pleases both employees and your leadership team.
Related posts:
- Why Are IT Pros Hesitant to Deploy Windows 11?
- Windows 10 Migration: It’s About Experience Not Operating Systems
- The DEX Show | Podcast #8 – Remote-Work Wireheading w/ Tom Goodwin
