10 Key Mistakes IC Pros Need To Avoid When Migrating EXP

Choose the Workvivo migration tool to minimize stress, risks, and mistakes when shifting EXP. Otherwise, buckle in and try your best to avoid these common hiccups.

Internal communicators understandably enjoy bringing new channels on stream. They give us a chance to engage with our various audiences in different ways. But though migrating employee experience platform (EXP) may seem easy enough – lift and shift – it can be fraught with potential hazards that need to be carefully navigated.

We’ve listed the key mistakes below, the impacts they can have, and preventative measures you can take to ensure a smooth, successful EXP migration. 
But before diving in, it’s worth pointing out that Workvivo’s migration tool, co-developed with Meta, makes the process simple and streamlined for Workplace customers. Learn more about that here. 

Not that we’re biased or anything... 

1. Assuming people understand how it supports your business strategy 

While internal communicators live and breathe EXPs, our stakeholders and employees at large do not. Assumption is the mother of many communication disasters, so you need to clearly spell out for your people how your EXP helps the delivery of your business objectives, whether they’re around productivity, engagement, or simplification. 

If you don’t make this connection for people, and consistently reinforce it, they are less likely to engage with the platform or not make best use of it.

Preventative measure

Be clear on the business purpose of your EXP, and root all your communications in this.

2. Not having an internal communications and change management plan

Fail to plan, plan to fail. Sometimes, in the rush to get an EXP live by a certain date (for example, a major company event) internal communicators can, intentionally or otherwise, forget to plan a migration, or shortcut steps. 

Without a clear plan to follow, you are inevitably leaving yourself open to a host of problems, including (but not limited to) delays, inappropriate usage, and low adoption. 

Preventative measure

Create an integrated internal communications and change management plan. 

3. Failing to identify and engage with key stakeholders 

Stakeholders can make or break an EXP migration. Internal communicators must work beyond IT and HR, who might own the EXP, or be actively involved in the delivery of it, and map all the various parties you need to engage with across the business.

Missing certain stakeholders off, or not getting key ones onside, runs the risk of your migration being canceled, delayed, or not supported as fully as it needs to be.    

Preventative measure

List all your stakeholders, and categorize them according to influence and impact.

4. Underestimating the scope of the change 

An EXP migration may not seem a huge deal to your leaders, depending on other changes going on in your business. But for your team and your employees, it is. You’re asking them to engage with your organization in a new way, so do not underestimate this in your scoping and planning. 

When internal communicators downplay an EXP migration, it can affect how much budget and resource is assigned to the project. 

Preventative measure

Scope the migration properly, considering the size and scale of the change. 

5. Ignoring influencers 

By nature, internal communicators spend a lot of our time engaging with ‘traditional’ stakeholders – senior leaders, HR, IT, and more. This ignores a growing reality that inside organizations, just as on social media, influencers are the ones who can move the needle on projects more effectively than others. 

Dismissing influencers means potentially alienating or not reaching them and their followers, who could prove critical to uptake of your EXP. 

Preventative measure

Find and connect with your influencers early, and even consider inviting them onto your project team. 

6. Poor or non-existent training 

No matter how intuitive your EXP is, your people still need training on issues such as data security, privacy, publishing, and more. The pace at which some EXPs are launched can mean that training is not provided, or its quality isn’t sufficient to give employees the information they need. 

For a new EXP platform to really fly, training is essential. Without it, you’re exposing your organization to potential cyber attacks, enabling misuse and abuse, and missing a golden opportunity to engage and excite your people. 

Preventative measure

Ensure you have a comprehensive, user-friendly training program in place before launch. 

Better yet, opt for Workvivo, which is so familiar and accessible that training requirements are kept to an absolute minimum.

7. Making it just another tool 

Trust me, your employees do not need another tool. They have way too many already. What they want is a single place where they can share, collaborate, and engage. And, who knows, even have fun? But a frequent mistake is positioning the EXP as a top-down ‘corporate’ business platform that employees must engage with. 

If your employees consider your EXP yet one more place they need to remember to check each day, it will turn them off – fast. The platform must feel by them and for them.

Preventative measure

Position the EXP as a bottom-up, fun place to highlight your people and amplify employee voices. 

8. Leaving employees nowhere to go for feedback 

Hopefully, you’ve chosen an EXP that encourages employee engagement and two-way dialogue (like Workvivo, for example!). This same principle should apply to your migration. As you train your people on it and they start using it, they need to have somewhere to go where they can ask questions, make suggestions, and give feedback.   

When employees can’t find the information they need quickly, or don’t feel that their voice is being heard, they will disengage, and your adoption and usage will suffer. 

Preventative measure

Establish a central feedback hub on your EXP, and set expectations for response times. 

9. Focusing only on the launch 

If only I had a pound for every time I’d seen, or made, this common mistake. Launching an EXP takes huge amounts of internal communicators’ time and energy. As such, when the platform goes live, it’s normal to feel like that’s the end. But it’s just the start.

By only focusing on the launch, you won’t achieve the full business benefits that an EXP with a sustainable, long-term plan behind it will do.

Preventative measure

From the start, have a multi-year communications strategy for your EXP to maintain momentum and properly embed it into your business. 

10. Forgetting to celebrate your achievement

Internal communicators are not great at pausing to celebrate our achievements. Typically, before one event is finished, we are already on to the next one. As I wrote earlier, an EXP can be a gamechanger for your organization’s engagement, productivity, and performance, so don’t forget to celebrate this important milestone.

In acknowledging your team’s achievement, you will keep their motivation high at the time when you need it most – post-launch. If your people don’t feel recognized and valued for getting your migration over the line, all your hard work up to this point could be in vain.

Preventative measure

Include launch celebrations in your internal communication and change management plan, and consider how you can involve all employees in them.

Good luck!

You will no doubt have other points on your list. And if you’re not at migration yet but considering a new EXP, here are 10 things you need to look for. 

Whatever platform you choose (again, we recommend the world’s leading EXP, Workvivo), we wish you the best of luck in sidestepping these mistakes and delivering an effective migration.