How companies can keep adding tech like AI without suffering ‘change fatigue’

Good morning. Using tech to streamline the finance function is taking place across all industries—even gleaning data from slot machines.

I had a chat with Vanesa Bui, VP of transformation at Mohegan Gaming & Entertainment, during the Gartner CFO & Finance Executive Conference on Tuesday. Mohegan's portfolio also includes food and beverage, lodging, and even a basketball team. The company, with the help of PwC, recently transformed its legacy finance and HR systems into a unified solution with Workday (a CFO Daily sponsor).

Bui offered an example. “For our gaming operators," she explained, going deeper with analytics is all about "understanding how their business is doing. How’s the slot performance on a daily basis? What’s the usage of seats at the table or the slot machines? You need the financial data to enable that type of analysis to help operators make better business decisions.”

As employees embrace such changes and transformations take place, Bui said it's vital to keep them all engaged in the journey—and it's not always easy. "Change fatigue is real,” she told me. “When you are constantly introducing change to people that have normal, 40-hour work weeks, it's hard to digest.”

Team members who feel overloaded are often slower to adopt new systems, and others may begin looking to switch teams—or even switch companies, she said. Being inclusive and communicating effectively can help combat such feelings. When it comes to new tech, Bui added, you should be as transparent as possible—“This process is going to be painful, and it's going to be hard"—and remind them how it's going to help them achieve their goals.

This is where good managers can help, noted Gartner's Marco D'Ascoli, a director of advisory in the finance practice, who spoke during another conference session. "I've talked to many CFOs complaining about the lack of capacity to address resistance," he said. They simply don't have the time to communicate with everyone at a company. Finance chiefs tell him: "We need help from the managers within the organization."

Mid-level managers can help close those communication gaps, working with CFOs to create a one-page document to share with direct reports. Such a one-pager should address things like what's changing and what's not, what the costs and benefits are, and which key milestones to shoot for. And managers then can personalize the documents to make them even more relevant to their teams, D'Ascoli said.

“This tactic," he added, "will allow employees to see the transformation value."

Sheryl Estrada
sheryl.estrada@fortune.com

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com