New recruits today are expected to have a level of competence on a computer – at least they should be able to manage their email and create a simple Word document. The danger is that everyone is expected to develop their skills as they go – and it’s rare that anyone checks out how effective everyone’s skills are.
Even people who have been using an application for many years don’t know how to use some of the features – because nobody has shown them how. They waste lots of time doing things ‘the long way’, simply because they don’t know it’s possible to short cut these tasks.
Ask a couple of people who use Word if they can:
- Create tables
- Use the style sheets
- Add sections into documents with pages oriented in different layouts
- Manage numbered lists with sub sections.
All these things can save an enormous amount of time. Knowing how to manage lists alone can literally save days. Most people can do a simple list, but when there are sections it can waste hours renumbering and messing about with formats.
Investing in a training needs analysis for your team on their use of core Microsoft Office products such as Word, Excel and PowerPoint could make a massive difference to their productivity, and your company profitability!
