You can’t just throw a new tool at your employees and assume they’ll use it. It’s a common pitfall: a company spends a ton of money on a new platform, sends out a single email announcing the change, and then wonders why no one is using it six months later. The truth is, digital transformation is never just about the technology. It’s about empowering people to work in new ways, to be more effective, and to feel more connected to their work.
At SADA, An Insight company, we understand that successful cloud adoption hinges on thoughtful, people-first change management. Our expertise ensures that technology rollouts become monumental victories for our customers, not just technical implementations. Our change management experts are more like organizational psychologists, focused on the human element of technology adoption. As a result, they’ve helped thousands of organizations achieve cultural and behavioral transformation, ensuring technology investments yield lasting business value.
Before we take a look at how SADA’s strategic change management is driving success for leading organizations, let’s discuss what people-first change management actually is.
What is people-first change management?
What if you could transform your team’s resistance into enthusiastic adoption? That’s the core of a people-first change management philosophy. It’s a strategic, human-centered approach that goes beyond simple training sessions, empowering your people to thrive with new technology.
This methodology is a structured process built on three core pillars:
- Strategic alignment: We start by deeply understanding your organization’s unique culture and goals. We don’t just implement technology; we craft a plan that aligns with how your teams work, ensuring that new tools serve your people, not the other way around.
- Empowering champions: The most effective change comes from within. We help you identify and empower a network of “superusers” or “champions” who can inspire and guide their peers, building trust and a culture of shared learning.
- Sustained engagement: Change is a journey, not a single event. Our approach includes ongoing support, from creating use case libraries to offering continuous check-ins and video tips. This ensures new tools become a natural part of daily workflows, helping employees discover innovative ways to use them long after the initial rollout is complete.
By focusing on these principles, you can achieve monumental success—not just through technical installations, but through cultural and behavioral transformation. These principles aren’t just theoretical; they drive real-world success for our customers. Let’s dive into 4 of our own customer success stories:
Plexus: a people-first transformation for 20,000 employees
Plexus, a company focused on creating products that build a better world, realized that legacy platforms were holding back its 20,000 talented team members. The challenge of migrating a global workforce to Google Workspace was significant, requiring a partner that would take a people-first approach.
Plexus and SADA worked together to flip the switch for 20,000 frontline employees in a journey that took about nine months from planning to execution. Kristy DeLeeuw, Vice President of Enterprise Transformation at Plexus, noted that the change side of the project holds some of the most proud accomplishments, especially considering that 70% to 90% of digital transformations are commonly cited as failing due to a lack of people engagement or enablement.
A key to Plexus’s success was the establishment of a Google Ambassador Network. This network wasn’t about technology expertise, but about curiosity and wanting to help others, asking 5% of the organization to volunteer. This “dynamic environment across colleagues” proved highly effective, with people actively sharing knowledge, even up to the CEO answering a Google-related question during a call. As their journey evolves, Plexus is building on this foundation by creating a Google Innovator group to rethink how they use Google Workspace tools to replace legacy solutions.
Pinnacol Assurance: cultivating confidence and community
For Pinnacol Assurance, a leading workers’ compensation provider in Colorado, moving from a hosted exchange system and locally installed desktop software to Google Workspace was necessary to foster innovation. While the idea of moving from legacy systems was met with initial apprehension, the subsequent shift to remote work during the pandemic made the move to Workspace feel perfectly timed.
SADA was instrumental in creating a strategic change plan that included a phased rollout starting with a group of superusers who would champion the adoption. Pinnacol’s change manager, Heather Hoyer, highlighted that the process for rolling out Gemini for Google Workspace felt familiar because of their prior work with SADA.
The support framework included:
- Formalized training for superusers.
- Ongoing check-ins and a clear roadmap for new solutions.
- Engaging a new group of Gemini superusers with weekly tips, videos, and information sessions.
- Creating a use case library where employees can get inspired by how others use Gemini.
This structured, human-led approach worked: almost 95% of Pinnacol employees surveyed understand how AI can transform their work, and 98% feel their manager supports their use of the tool. Furthermore, 96% report time savings as a result of using Gemini.
apree health: securing data and empowering developers
apree health, a technology-based organization in the stringent healthcare industry, needed to simplify its complex, agent-based security systems to empower its fast-moving developers while protecting sensitive Protected Health Information (PHI).
SADA provided the “migration know-how and change management experience” necessary for apree health to merge tech stacks following a company formation. SADA successfully migrated over 1,200 employees in six months and provided more than 40 employee training sessions to facilitate company-wide change management. This ensured that the technical rollout aligned with user experience and training needs.
When it came to implementing Gemini for Google Workspace, apree health’s CISO, Jeff Bryner, emphasized a methodical approach, setting out to narrow the scope of business use cases to ensure effective training, such as generating document templates or drafting emails. With Gemini protected by the same security controls as Workspace, even physicians can use it to organize patient notes and refine patient-facing communications.
Turner Industries: reclaiming time and driving cultural change
Turner Industries, a leader in the traditional industrial services industry, began its move from Microsoft Office to Google Workspace initially as a cost-saving measure, but quickly realized the platform’s communication and collaboration capabilities would prepare them for the future. Overcoming resistance to change in a traditional industry required a clear strategy.
SADA developed a comprehensive plan, focusing carefully on change management for employees. In fact, the CEO, Stephen Toups, stated that SADA brought a “clearly defined plan for change management—all we had to do was follow it.” SADA successfully transitioned 4,800 employees to the cloud.
The results are significant:
- 17,000 hours reclaimed in employee productivity per year.
- $8 million reduction in licensing costs over five years.
- 50% reduction in operational planning time from redundant paperwork.
Perhaps most telling is the cultural shift, exemplified when frontline workers spontaneously used a shared Google Sheet to track the status of active sites during a major hurricane. This initiative was proof that their culture was changing, according to the CEO.
Ready to turn change into momentum?
SADA understands that the true measure of a successful technology implementation isn’t whether the software works, but whether your people thrive. Our change management philosophy is proven: it’s strategic, human-centered, and dedicated to transforming initial resistance into enthusiastic adoption, ensuring you achieve the same exceptional results as Plexus, Pinnacol Assurance, Turner Industries, and apree health.
Don’t let the “people part” of transformation become your biggest roadblock. Partner with SADA to leverage our decades of Google Cloud experience, proprietary methodology, and a proven ability to accelerate cultural and digital change across any industry.
Your next great business outcome is one click away. Let’s make your transformation a success story.
Get started today by taking our free change readiness assessment.
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