Key Takeaways
- Convincing employees to stop using Excel requires understanding and fixing root causes, and ultimately using change management to change employee behavior.
- Employee behavior change in digital transformation cements newly designed workflows, ownership, and governance.
- Sustainable behavior change requires ensuring (and demonstrating) that enterprise systems can meet user needs more consistently than spreadsheets.
It’s a common scenario: forecasts, reconciliations, and production schedules all living in personal or shared spreadsheets that operate outside official systems.
This comes to the attention of most organizations years later—while conducting current-state assessments before digital transformation.
What are the drivers behind spreadsheet dependency? This blog explores the top causes and how leaders can use organizational change management (OCM) as part of the solution to address spreadsheet usage.
Client Example: When Excel Becomes the Default System
An OCM engagement at an aerospace and defense company provides an example of two common reasons why employees use spreadsheets: process issues and training issues.
Although the company had an existing ERP system implemented across several manufacturing plants, employees continued using Excel and AS/400 workarounds. The company engaged Panorama to address this issue before upgrading to the latest version of the ERP system.
Our ERP consultants discovered that training gaps and a lack of process standardization were causing users to trust their personal spreadsheets more than the ERP. Our approach was to assess employee workarounds and pain points so we could resolve process and training issues prior to the upgrade.
Why Employees Use Excel
Employees typically use Excel because it gives them control, speed, and flexibility in situations where official systems fall short.
Executives need to interpret this behavior clearly. Before trying to convince employees to stop using Excel, leaders should ask what those spreadsheets are compensating for. This might include:
- Enterprise systems that cannot adapt to edge cases or unique scenarios
- Workflows that vary by person or department
- Data ownership that is unclear or nonexistent
These issues are especially common among organizations in the following scenarios:
Organizations with Multi-Site or Multi-Entity Complexity
In multi-site or multi-entity organizations, workflows often vary by location. As a result, employees build spreadsheets, and Excel becomes the default way to:
- Normalize data between sites
- Reconcile timing differences in reporting
- Create “local supplements” to corporate processes
Organizations with Misaligned System Access
When employees lack the right access to perform core tasks in the ERP system, they turn to spreadsheets to:
- Perform calculations they cannot do in the system
- Maintain shadow records when visibility is restricted
- Store work they cannot save in system workflows
Where Does OCM Fit?
Organizational change management is only one piece of the puzzle of fixing Excel dependency. The below steps are crucial to complete before working on behavior change:
1. Assessment
Assess your current state and identify spreadsheet workarounds among employees. Then, diagnose the causes.
2. Decision
Decide whether to replace your current system, reimplement it, or optimize it. If a new system is needed, then system selection should happen before process design.
3. Business Process Design
Define future-state workflows, process ownership, and data governance. You can learn more about this in these blog posts:
4. Behavior Change
Use organizational change management to build trust in the redesigned workflows, reduce workaround habits, and guide users through the transition. This is where communication, role clarity, training, and reinforcement ensure the process improvements take hold.
Note: OCM often overlaps with process design. During this phase, leaders build credibility by involving employees in shaping future workflows.
The Importance of Employee Behavior Change in Digital Transformation
But behavior change needs to begin with credibility. Leaders must demonstrate that official enterprise systems can meet user needs faster, better, and more reliably than spreadsheets.
Our change management consultants often recommend the following approaches:
- Co-creating future workflows with the people doing the work
- Demonstrating early wins where system-based processes outperform manual ones
- Identifying super users who can lead by example and coach others
- Measuring behavior change by evaluating adherence to new roles, handoffs, and decision rights, while monitoring increases in system usage
When employees are kept informed, consulted regularly, and shown how their input shapes outcomes, they are far more likely to shift behavior.
Learn More About Employee Behavior Change
Once you fix the conditions that make spreadsheets feel safer than the ERP, organizational change management can help you convince employees to stop using Excel. An effective OCM plan builds trust in the ERP system while reinforcing new responsibilities.
Our ERP business consultants help organizations address spreadsheet dependency at both the structural and behavioral levels. Through our ERP readiness assessments, we help clients map spreadsheet usage, identify organizational gaps, and design a change management approach that sustains behavior change.
