In the hands of an untrained user, even the best of systems will fail to provide the efficiency and effectiveness for which it was designed. Ongoing training is essential to maximizing your company’s investment in its business systems and its employees, which in turn benefits your customers.
Whether you are implementing a new system, expanding your existing system capabilities, or adding new team members, training will always merit dedicated time and budget.
How do you do stay current when your team is busy with day-to-day operations?
- Leverage all online training videos, user guides, and/or webinars offered to help you stay up to date. CS3 maintains an online library of training videos, blogs, and white papers that are available at any time, any place. Our recorded SmartTalks user group sessions are also available to our SERV Support clients when they are unable to join our monthly sessions. Make sure your vendors have you on their subscription email list for updates – and verify that emails aren’t falling into your Junk/Spam folders!
“You can't teach people everything they need to know. The best you can do is position them where they can find what they need to know when they need to know it.” Seymour Papert
- Ensure that you provide thorough and up-do-date training for all new or existing employees on the systems that they will be using. People learn in different ways, so factor that into the methods of training that you offer (e.g. one-on-one, video, classroom, process documentation.) Whether training on HR/PR, ERP, Report Writing, Employee Self-Service, or Time card and expense report submissions, your training investment will pay for itself quickly through increased productivity, accuracy and job/employee satisfaction.
“The only thing worse than training your employees and having them leave is not training them and having them stay.” Henry Ford
- Maintain documentation of the business processes that are unique to your company and that reinforce consistent quality and accuracy. Be careful not to fall into the trap of leveraging old, out-of-date training materials. Don’t expect new employees to apply their preexisting notions of what the process should be until they understand how your company currently operates – then challenge them to help identify improvements!
“Tell me and I forget; teach me and I remember; involve me and I learn.” Benjamin Franklin
- Watch for new functionality and/or add-on products available with your existing system and make sure that a team member is assigned to assess its applicability in your environment. If you aren’t growing and evolving your own processes, you will be left behind by your competitors who are.
“The world as we have created it is a process of our thinking. It cannot be changed without changing our thinking.” Albert Einstein
- Attend industry trade shows, professional user groups, or subscribe to online industry magazines to stay up-to-date on the latest trends, functionality, and best practices.
“Train people well enough so that they can leave. Treat them well enough so they don’t want to.” Sir Richard Branson
In summary, no matter how successfully a project team may plan, configure, and test a new system, the project will flounder within the first 3 months if the end-users (i.e. those in whose hands the system relies) are not trained adequately. Today’s rapid turnaround of new/enhanced functionality from software developers puts greater emphasis on staying on top of changing and evolving system capabilities. And lastly, nothing communicates the importance of a new team member more than ensuring timely, up-to-date and relevant training.
Photo by Mimi Thian on Unsplash
