Rapid, Tectonic Shifts In Technology Challenge Your Employees And Organization

They don’t make technology revolutions like they used to; now, they make them faster.

Consider the history of technology adoption (see figure below). While it took 50 years for 50 million people to use the telephone (1878), it only took 22 years for television (1930) to reach the same penetration. Yet the iPhone (2007) reached 100 million users in the US alone in just eight years. Fast, right? Not as fast as today. How about WeChat (2011), which took only one year to reach 50 million users, or ChatGPT (2022), which reached 100 million in two months?

Figure showing that the time to reach 50 or 100 million users has rapidly shrunk over the years
Time To Mass Adoption Has Decreased Dramatically

This kinetic pace of technology change challenges both workers and your organization: It’s hard for employees to adapt effectively and quickly, which creates frictions that undermine your technology deployments and business results.

Disruptive Technology Change Is A Human, Not A Technology, Challenge

In case it’s unclear, we’re not talking just about technology employees (though they face challenges, too). We’re talking about every employee in every role. It’s true for AI: We’ve shown how grounding your workforce AI strategy in human experience is crucial to business success. But human factors influence the adoption of every technology, from devices to software to AI and beyond. And too often, organizations invest in technologies that don’t meet employee needs, ignore the central role that employee experience plays in technology adoption, and underinvest in comprehensive learning and engagement programs.

The Future Of Work Requires A High Technology Change Quotient (TCQ)

Focusing on technology alone is a losing strategy: You can’t predict exactly how new technologies will unfold, nor precisely which vendor will roll out the features you need most. Focusing on the human side, however, prepares your organization for any turns that the technologies take, making you resilient to the ever-changing technology landscape: You can prepare your employees to become adaptable learners who quickly embrace and master each new wave of technology change that arrives. How? Enter TCQ, Forrester’s technology change quotient:

TCQ measures the readiness of employees, teams, and organizations to adapt to technology in a way that drives productivity, creativity, and inventiveness.

Teams and individuals with higher TCQ possess attributes that help them — and your organization — thrive in today’s environment of accelerated technology change. It predicts four business-crucial outcomes, including these two:

  • Adaptiveness. Being able to adapt to new technology is the key capacity that employees must develop in the face of disruptive technology change. Higher adaptiveness means faster time to value when you deploy new technology and lower rates of employee rejection of those tools.
  • Productivity. Translating deployments of technologies into genuine workforce productivity is a common challenge. Higher productivity means that employees create the ROI you seek when investing in workforce technologies.

Driving higher TCQ requires you to provide resources — both tangible and intangible ones — to help employees understand and embrace new technologies as an opportunity builder. As one employee from Forrester’s ConsumerVoices Market Research Online Community told us, “constant support is always good when it comes to technology.” With TCQ, you — as a leader — can help ensure that these resources are available.

Benchmark Your Employees With TCQ

As with Forrester’s artificial intelligence quotient, Forrester Decisions seatholders can deploy our TCQ survey to large groups of employees to benchmark readiness, identify gaps and opportunities, and develop a comprehensive strategy for driving business outcomes through technology deployments. It can save you from leaping too soon or help you develop a high-TCQ workforce that’s ready to take advantage of new technologies.

Next Steps For You? Read Our Report And Let’s Talk.

We’ve just released a major report detailing TCQ and how it can help you: Prepare Your Workforce For Disruptive Technology Change. Forrester clients should check out the report, then reach out to schedule a guidance session with me — I’ll help you design a successful workforce AI strategy.