What business can do to make it easier, not harder for staff to be productive
The lightning speed at which organizations shifted to online during the COVID pandemic meant many workers had to learn new technology to access organizational data remotely and participate in workplace meetings online.
In a recent Raconteur article, Five Priorities for CIO’s in 2021, CIO’s identified the importance of engaging and educating their workforce with system capability.
Whilst to many this may seem obvious, every organization has workers with different skill levels, confidence and exposure to technology that impacts on their perception of their capability.
As restrictions start to relax and staff are settling in to returning to work or a hybrid mix of office and work from home, the opportunity exists for organizations to relieve the pressure on staff by providing short, specific, and relevant opportunities for organizational learning.
A client of mine has staff that are specialists in their area, but not as strong when it comes to working with the organization’s everyday technology. Taking them out of the field for full, or even half day training programs was not practical. It was more likely to stress staff out rather than provide support. Working together we came up with the concept of micro-learning sessions.
Each session covered a business specific software process and broke it down into a 10-15 minute micro-learning session. These two-weekly sessions were delivered live and recorded. Each recording was internally promoted between sessions, available for revisiting by staff and was utilised as a resource for new staff induction, leveraging the initial investment and adding further value.
As a former corporate IT trainer, I remember the look of panic at the end of a full day of Microsoft Excel training on participant’s faces. The underlying expectation they felt, of returning to work and the assumption they would now miraculously be Excel experts!
The acceleration of technology is outpacing the ability of workers to keep up. Rather than overwhelm staff with more stuff, try peppering in the right stuff. Small bites that can be embedded into their everyday and as a result build confidence and demonstrate to staff that the business is there to them to be productive, engaged and happy… and that’s got to be a good thing!
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Read the full Raconteur article here
