The Edge July/August 2025

PEER PERSPECTIVES

Photo: Strata Land scape Services

easier to get the remaining team mem bers on board. When dealing with true resistance, work with the more reluctant employees to determine their reasoning. Delano says they provide a forum for hesitant employees to voice their concerns and frustrations. “Understanding why they’re reluctant helps us better address their specific issues,” Delano says. “Once we compre hend their hesitations, we can more effectively resolve or discuss them. If we’ve completed this process and still can’t gain their support, forced adoption becomes the necessary final step.” DeJournett says they don’t just hand out fishing poles; they teach their em ployees how to fish. For those who are less tech-savvy, they simply spend more one-on-one time with them. “Just like adopting a puppy, it can be a bit messy but very rewarding in the end if done right!” DeJournett says. “Occa sionally, we have an employee who just can’t adapt. In those cases, if they’re a valued tenured employee, then we may give them an apprentice who actually

ment who are more experienced than a typical user would be. This empowers and enables the team to move faster as they adopt the technology. “We assign an owner to every new technology, someone who is responsible for successful deployment,” DeJournett says. “That person is held accountable to adaptation by the team and giving daily feedback to management.” Don’t forget to examine the value your new technology has brought your team. The ROI achieved may vary by usage case. Sometimes, it may be in dollars and other times in increased client satisfaction or other harder-to-quantify elements. DeJournett says they will A/B test a rollout with different crews or segments of the business when they can. “If we can’t A/B test for some reason, then we look at before/after data and try to determine if any other variables might have changed at the same time,” DeJour nett says. “We’re always assessing our technology deployments and wheth er there is a better technology or process available though.” Delano says they also collect rigorous ROI measurements to ensure the value of the new technology. For instance, when Level Green Landscaping rolled out their autonomous mowers, they kept detailed metrics on costs per property and compared them to pre-implemen tation visits. “This shows whether we’re achieving cost savings or if the technology is a cost-sink,” Delano says. “We understand new technology may not immediately return positive ROI, so we remain patient as long as we see a pathway to positive impact.” TE

takes on the technology aspect while being trained on the operations side by the more operationally experienced employee.” Swank says in some cases, pushback can arise from employees who don’t want the increased levels of account ability. “If people are unwilling to change, sometimes you just have to move on,” Swank says. POST-IMPLEMENTATION TROUBLE SHOOTING AND ASSESSMENT Even after achieving employee buy-in, there’s not really a ‘finish line’ for rolling out new technology. It’s important to establish ongoing support for team members. For instance, Chalet established ‘office hours’ as if they were a college professor when launching one of their quarterly tech projects. “Inevitably, things won’t go exactly as expected, so this has been a key forum for hashing out the issues,”Thalmann says. “We also have an IT Help Desk through Zendesk where anyone in the company can email in to create a sup port ticket.” Delano says as director of technology, he serves as his team’s central point of contact for all technology issues. Em ployees know they can come to him, and he also reaches out proactively to learn what is or isn’t working. “Issues or errors present huge hurdles to full implementation, as employees quickly become frustrated when things aren’t working properly, so it’s impera tive to address problems immediately,” Delano says. Swank says that he is working to establish champions from each depart

 KEY TAKEAWAYS ■ Successful tech rollouts depend more on people than on platforms. Clear communication,

should identify the root problem, involve cross-functional teams, and test/demo platforms to ensure long-term fit and ROI. post-implementation ad dresses pain points and ROI metrics can guide future business decisions.

stakeholder involvement, and thoughtful change management are critical

■ Providing support

to ensuring employ ee buy-in and lasting adoption.

■ Before investing in

technology, companies

28 The Edge // July/August 2025