Melanie: Her Tips For A Successful Digitalisation

Companies need to drive their digitalisation in the face of flexible and remote working hours. Our colleague Melanie Schmidt explains what the challenges are during this transformation and what the solutions look like.

October 23, 2022

Our colleague Melanie has been working for DONE! since January 2021. She is a Senior Consultant and responsible for clients such as Knauf Digital, DEMECAN, Eyeo or KLAR. In doing so, she must dive deep into different industries and their challenges: construction, logistics, fintechs, and the medical industry. Together with her team, she is implementing tools and processes, giving advice on people related matters to founders and managers as well as doing recruitment for some clients.

Working in HR means so much to Melanie because she gets to meet people here. That inspires her anew every day. Through her work at DONE!, Melanie also has direct insights into different companies that are struggling with specific challenges. But they all have something in common: Her clients are currently transitioning to remote work. The accompanying digital new world of work not only poses challenges for her customers, but also creates fears among colleagues and applicants.

How HR Can Help To Support The Digital Transformation In Companies

Melanie knows that any introduction of a new digital tool or process is automatically a change of something familiar. The biggest challenge for her is that change is always difficult to implement, as many employees resist it and want to stick to what they are used to.

That's why for her, it is most important to address fears at the beginning of the digital transformation in the concerned department and to listen carefully to her clients' employees to find out where she and her team can start with the process, who are the stakeholders, who are the drivers of this change and who are the blockers. When you want to change an environment, it's significant to have everyone pulling in the same direction to achieve the expected results.

Attentive listening and creating a safe, positive and friendly environment where employees can open up are key to a successful change management. Transparent communication with the affected employees is essential, too. Moreover, it is helpful to present best practices and positive results of this specific change that help to change the team member's attitude towards the new digital work processes.

In all cases, a project leader is needed to bring together the various stakeholders, identify drivers and blockers, report on successes and failures, and guide through the entire project with a structured approach. In many cases, it is Melanie herself who acts as team lead for her clients.

That is why Melanie is so happy working in HR because she can have an impact on new organisations that reach the market as well as on existing companies that now realise they need to change old settings and start their digital transformation.

Personal Facts About Melanie

Outside of work, Melanie enjoys sports (running, cycling, bouldering), cooking, dancing and traveling. Her expeditions to Asia,South America and India were very important to her because she learned a lot on these trips. In her opinion, it broadened her horizons and developed her personality. She also likes to laugh because she has a very positive attitude towards everything and is very open - to all kinds of questions and interests of the people around her.

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