No mandatory training session has ever made anyone adopt a tool they didn't want to use. People don't use software because someone explained its features in a room on a Tuesday afternoon -they use it because it solves something concrete faster than whatever they were already doing: a spreadsheet, a group chat, asking someone in HR in person. If the software is slower or more confusing than those alternatives, training only delays people giving up on it, it never actually fixes the underlying problem.
Real adoption is built backwards from how it's usually framed: it's not "how do I get people to learn this," it's "what do people need to solve every day, such that opening this is the fastest way to do it."
The home screen has to answer something at a glance
If the home screen says nothing useful the moment someone opens it, they won't come back unless they're told to. In Cantevia, the home screen shows the daily engagement pulse -two quick questions, no need to go looking for them- alongside each person's vacation balance and pending tasks. That turns the home screen into something worth checking because it answers a real question ("how many days do I have left," "do I have something pending to sign"), not because it's mandatory to log in.
Self-service: what removes the need to ask anyone
Every task a person can handle on their own -clocking in, requesting time off, checking their payslip, taking a training course- is one less call or email to HR, and one more real reason to open the app again. When clocking in is the first thing someone does at their desk, and requesting a day off doesn't mean filling out a paper form, the software stops being "one more obligation" and becomes the place where those things were already happening anyway.
Seeing your own progress also brings people back
Adoption doesn't only depend on solving quick day-to-day tasks -it also helps to see medium-term progress. When a person can check the status of their own goals, or download the certificate they just earned finishing a training course, they have a reason to come back that isn't "I have to clock in," but "I want to see how I'm doing."
That kind of motivation is built with real, visible data for the person themselves, not with a welcome session in week one that nobody remembers a month later. The more useful the system is for the employee -not just for HR- the less anyone has to push them to use it.
What mandatory training can't fix
If it takes a thirty-page manual for someone to request a day off, the problem isn't training, it's design. The real test of whether software will get used isn't how many people showed up to the welcome session -it's how many people log back in the second week without anyone reminding them.
Adoption isn't mandated or taught: it's earned, one task at a time, by being the fastest option available.