Whether you’re migrating to a new employee experience platform (EXP) because your current solution is being discontinued, or purely because you’re taking your digital employee experience up a level, it’s important to prioritize engaging your employees from the outset.

By this stage, you’ve done your research to select your new platform, you’ve created your content migration plan, and you’ve started working through the nine steps of a successful migration. It’s now the time to get your employee engagement ducks in a row to make sure the migration is a success and the launch is a slam-dunk.

Luckily, we’re engagement pros with a gazillion years of combined experience here at Workvivo, so we’ve totally got your back on this one.

This blog post describes five ways to engage employees with your new EXP. Ready, set… migrate!

1. Communicate early and often

Communicating openly about the plans for your new EXP should be a priority from the very start. It’s important to involve employees from the beginning by explaining the reason for the migration – are you introducing the new platform in response to employee feedback? Or to solve a problem? Or are you migrating to a new provider due to your current one being discontinued?

Tell the story, and be honest. By communicating early, you demonstrate your commitment to taking employees on the journey with you.

Talk about the main differences of the new platform, share its benefits, and tell employees about the ways it will make their lives easier. This is your opportunity to start building excitement about the migration, and to get ahead of any rumors.

And remember to share the message across multiple internal channels throughout the migration process. Different employees favor different comms channels, so make sure you allow enough time to publish in different places.

2. Recruit platform champions

We talk a lot about the power of ‘internal champions’, or influencers, on the Workvivo blog, and not without good reason.

These employees can become ambassadors for your migration, helping to drive engagement and create awareness and understanding among their colleagues. It’s a well-known fact that people tend to have a higher level of trust in information that comes from a peer, so your platform champions will help build employee confidence in the new platform.

Make sure you recruit and involve your platform champions at the start of the migration process to give them a chance to offer feedback and be involved with the development of your launch plan. They’ll probably be more keen to get stuck in than you think!

3. Host leader previews

As is the case when introducing any new workplace tool, getting buy-in from the leadership team is one of the most important keys to success. A leader’s level of engagement and enthusiasm toward your new EXP will likely influence their entire team’s initial platform adoption.

Turn your leaders into EXP allies by keeping them in the loop throughout the migration process. They need to be made aware of the what, the why, and the how. And hosting a series of ‘leader previews’ is a great way to build awareness and engagement, and to encourage senior employees to get involved with the launch.

It’s also helpful to provide leaders with a set of talking points relating to the migration, the platform introduction, and any changes to how things are accessed.

4. Deliver training sessions

The best employee experience platforms have minimal requirements when it comes to user or admin training. Products like Workvivo have been built with a familiar, consumer-grade design that employees are able to pick up and find their way around from day dot.

That being said, it’s always helpful to deliver training sessions to ease any new platform anxiety. And they provide a great opportunity to get your champions involved!

I’m a big fan of more informal training opportunities such as Lunch & Learns, drop-in clinics, and quick-fire Q&A sessions. But don’t forget to also build up a bank of self-service resources and training materials, including –

- Video tutorials
- User guides
- FAQ documents
- Evergreen supporting documents that live on your EXP

5. Plan an engaging launch

Finally, planning an awesome launch is a great way to boost engagement with your new EXP.

Think about how you can engage all employees across the organization, taking the opportunity to showcase the platform and encourage initial adoption. Perhaps you could host a series of in-person and online launch events, run a competition, or distribute some branded merchandise?

And it should go without saying – but I’m going to say it anyway – that you need to make sure members of your platform’s support team are available to answer any questions and solve any problems on launch day. There are always a few questions as employees adjust to their new digital home, and you may run into problems if the entire EX team is OOO sipping on virgin mojitos and toasting a successful launch. Hold your horses folks, the behind-the-scenes celebrations will come soon!

Remember that an engaging platform launch lasts longer than just the ‘official’ launch day, so be sure to think about how you will keep engagement and enthusiasm high once the initial confetti has settled. Build a plan for the weeks and months ahead, while everybody is getting used to their new EXP, and coordinate with your platform champions to organize ongoing Q&A sessions and drop-ins.

Learn more: Workvivo is Meta's official migration partner