A 90-person distribution center went live in March. By April, three of the four warehouse leads were writing quantities on paper and typing them in at the end of the shift.
The project sponsor called it resistance. I called it survival. The new system asked for 11 extra steps per receipt, and nobody had explained why any of it mattered.
What training looked like versus what was needed
Two days of classroom sessions, three weeks before go-live. A 120-page manual in a binder. One super-user per shift who was also expected to hit their normal picking numbers.
People do not forget how to use a system. They forget why the new step exists. That is a different problem, and it needs a different fix.
Four changes that actually shifted behavior
- We rewrote every procedure as a one-page card with the reason at the top: scan at the dock so receiving disputes stop taking four days.
- We moved training to the week before go-live, in 45-minute sessions on the floor, using real pallets and real scanners.
- We named one expert per shift and pulled them off normal work for two weeks. Not a volunteer — a named person with a backup.
- We tracked one metric per week, receipts scanned at the dock, and posted it on a board everyone walked past.
Within five weeks, dock scanning hit 96%. The paper notes disappeared on their own, because paper no longer solved a problem anyone cared about.
The ten minutes that matter most
Every shift start, the lead spends ten minutes on one question: what is still slowing you down in the system? Answers go on a whiteboard and someone owns each one within 24 hours.
That single habit does more for adoption than any training budget. It tells your team the system is not finished until their workday gets easier. I have never seen an ERP Consulting engagement succeed on classroom hours alone, and I have watched a lot of them try.
Tomorrow morning, stand at the busiest workstation in your building for 30 minutes and just watch. Ask what they still write on paper. That paper is your real training plan.