Why bother training your staff? Today’s software can do it all!
Nowadays, almost all of your staff will have a computer at home. It may be a laptop or it could be one of the variety of tablet computers out there. Most people have a smart phone which in effect is a mini computer.
So with all this access to technology both at home and at work, why bother providing training for your team?
Speedier Work
Jill may have taught herself to use Excel – however she might be doing things the long way round or completely the wrong way! Take for example how you type a date in Excel. Here are some examples of what participants say when I ask them how they type the date:
1st September 2014
1/9/14
01/09/2014
01-09-14
1.9.2014
Only one of these is incorrect. It is the last one. The reason being is that Excel does not recognise that format as a date. This is fine if you don’t need to calculate with dates, but the minute you need Excel to perform any kind of calculation it simply won’t!
So now Jill has a problem. She will sit there for quite some time trying to get her date calculation to work. She may eventually give up and work it out on a calculator and just enter the result. Not the best thing to do as it will not update if any thing changes.
We can see here that this will slow Jill down and that is only one simple example of what can happen when you assume knowledge.
Interrupting other staff
Let’s see what else could happen, in the scenario above Jill will go and ask Clare how to get her dates to work.
Clare is the office Super Hero. She knows everything!
So now along comes Jill and asks Clare for help. The result- Jill learns what to do BUT Clare has been interrupted. This means that she has taken her attention away from what she was working on and given that attention to Jill and Jill’s problem. Now she must get back to what she was doing.
These kind of interruptions could cost Clare about 10 minutes each time in getting back on track. What does that do to the quality of Clare’s work and what kind of impact does it have on the bottom line?
In conclusion
It makes sense to give your staff the skills to get on with their work in the speediest and most confident way possible. You also stop the interruptions of your more knowledgeable staff. The result of training is improved work, more accuracy, better quality and getting more done in less time. A result for your organisation’s bottom line.
Does this type of thing happen where you work? Leave a comment and let me know what you think.
To discuss your organisation’s learning needs, give me a call on 020 8203 1774 or drop us and email to enquiries@theittrainingsurgery.com
The software may do it all but the person operating it? Well they need to know how to!
In my time as an IT Trainer, that was the point that we always had to get across; you may be self taught, but it may not be the most efficient method that you’ve learned, and sometimes it can stop you doing what you think you know how to do, because the data entry itself is incorrect.
There’s no substitute for great training; self teaching really is a false economy for time and money.
Love your tips Shelley.
I love Excel until it does something I dont want it to do like changing the format of the date, bit OCD here and like the format all the same in the column, I use Ctrl ; to put in the current days date.
All of my stock is kept on spread sheets that I can customise as I wish.
Glad you like the tips Rosanne – yest Control ; is a great way to add the current date. If you format the cells where the date goes before you add the date, then they will all show up as you want them to 😉
Glad you like the tips Rosanne – yes Control ; is a great way to add the current date. If you format the cells where the date goes before you add the date, then they will all show up as you want them to 😉