How Digi is using technology adoption to shape employee value
It’s common knowledge that a market-leading tech company in the iGaming business would use technology to optimise player experiences and drive revenue. But for DigiOutsource we wanted to use that same technology-led, innovation mindset to shape our internal processes. We realised that by looking at things from the inside out we could not just change the way we work without positively impacting our culture.
Headed by Chris Borman, the ‘Tech-Adoption’ role was borne from wanting to create a cultural mind-set of ownership. In other words, we wanted to encourage everyone in our business to own and improve the way they work by using tech to optimise how they spend their time. It’s the simple principle of finding better, more long-term ways to solve problems with technology solutions. And, of course with a collective of people who already use innovation to improve client experiences, it’s been a natural next step to look inward and improve our own day to day experiences.
How does it work?
The first step of our internal tech adoption was to ensure that we create spaces to upskill people on the basics – while we are a tech company, not all roles require an in-depth level of technical understanding. But that doesn’t mean that those people are not valuable.
By providing a space for employees to have a certain level of understanding of our technical systems, we’re able to invite everyone to the conversation in a meaningful way. Plus, showing people the systems and programmes available and already utilised across the business, makes it possible for them to quickly establish their own use cases. And all without having to adopt and implement completely new technologies.
Yes, our Tech Adoption team does focus on solving internal technical and process issues but the other, large part of this ‘adoption’ is about creating a space for sharing and collaboration. By connecting people where needs and expertise overlap, we can reenforce our strategy of ownership.
Whether it’s a forum, Teams chat or toolkit, these spaces allow people to share the solutions they’ve already created. Either there will be someone doing it better or someone else will want to do it your way. This creation of communities increases people’s sense of purpose and pride in not just their work or team but in the broader company.
For a company, like ours, that prides itself on people development, these communities are the perfect structure to facilitate growth in a self-driven way.
Beyond the tech
The Tech Adoption culture works so well because it directly aligns our Digi Goal: Empowered by tech with our values of ownership, accountability, and innovation.
Although it’s just one small part of our company structure, ‘Tech Adoption’ thinking helps to move the company mindset from dependant on others (for example IT) to collaborative problem solving.
We’ve seen it as a way to keep encouraging a culture of innovation, by challenging the norms and breaking out of the complacent ‘that’s how we’ve always done it’ mindset. It allows Digi to keep up with a fast-changing world by reacting and pivoting.
When remote working was implemented, we had to rethink how our teams collaborated. The challenge was to move away from a meeting culture – we all know back-to-back Teams calls can kill innovation faster than you can say ‘can you hear me now?’. By ensuring we’re at the forefront of tech we are able to enhance collaboration while still nurturing a strong team culture between in-office and at home employees.
This kind of thinking makes innovation a prerequisite, not just within people’s roles and teams but, within their broader contribution to the company. Because it’s woven into our culture it’s easier to seek out and reward those with an innovation mindset.
The practical results
One direct result of implementing a tech adoption culture is simply reducing the overlap of work. By advocating a sharing ethos, we’re able to get people talking about the tools they use to reduce tedious tasks and how they’ve overcome certain blockers in their day to day work. This, in turn encourages other teams to apply them to their own use cases.
The other major benefit has been streamlining how long certain tasks take. In one example, we added automation that allowed us to have live data at our fingertips, which meant we had the ability to easily implement live reporting. This reduced the teams reporting time by no less than 2 days every month. Leaving more space for innovation on client projects and therefore positively impacting company growth.
While the ‘Tech Adoption’ team was formed to promote internal innovation, we can see that it goes beyond just implementing new tools or software. It’s about creating a culture of self-empowered problem solvers.
