The deadly cost of not training

Mind you, I only had time for a quick skim of this article, but from what I've read, I can't agree more. It's title "IT's top 5 training mistakes" pretty much sums up the focus. What I find most interesting is in my own experience companies roll out software packages and seem to care very little if the actual person sitting in front of the computer has any idea of how to really make it work. The Microsoft Office suite is a classic case in point. It's not that Office doesn't have an amazing breadth of features, it does. It's more that the average user may use only 10% of those features and still consider themselves highly computer literate and a power user. That's why Office is really quite vulnerable in the future. The web 2.0-based, totally online, Office replacements don't have to be feature-rich, they have to do that 10% really, really well.

That's not to say that users shouldn't be trained to use use some of the missing 90% of the features that they ignore or have no idea exists. This is where IT really falls down. I believe that all organizations need a position entitled the "Director of Staff Efficiency." In this role, you would literally watch each team for a week to see what they do. What you'd find would be truly scary. Examples would be 100's of hours wasted on typing and retyping the same emails due to a lack of knowledge of how to use simple templates. Excel users who again, repeat reports over and over in extremely manual ways fraught with the potential of human error that could be, and should be, completely automated. Web users who really have no idea how to efficiently manage their online sourcing or information research. Nothing earth shattering from the technology side, but deadly time-killers and big shots to a corporate bottom line.

Yes, I know that the big buzz word nowadays is business process automation (BPA), but I'm talking about process review on a much, much lower level. It's time to get into the trenches, tackle your training needs, and focus on efficiency. Let's face it, nobody likes repeating manual processes over and over but this is the life of many American workers even if they sit behind spiffy new computer with the latest and greatest software. You'll have happier employees, better quality output, and faster, more efficient project completion.