But what happens when the whole team needs a boost in office productivity? A key takeaway in this recent article in Govloop.com states that teams can be more productive than individuals, so that gives us a nice starting point.
Getting a reference point is often a good place to start: where are team members on the office productivity spectrum?
Creating benchmarks can be time consuming, or simple, or somewhere in between. Simple can be perfectly effective, especially for small- and medium-sized organizations.
One of the easiest-to-implement that I often use is the "draw a line in the sand and create a launch point" method. Define the overall goal and estimate where are people at in comparison to the goal.
Currently I’m helping a company (let’s call them XYZ Company) become more productive with cloud software they implemented over 12 months ago. Think "12 months of some amount of lost office productivity = money out the window!" Most in the organization are familiar with previous versions of the software but frustrated when interacting in the cloud (cloud has that effect!) We decided on a starting place for everyone regardless of skillset, then moved on from there.
A quick and very effective way to deliver targeted training is through short-format webinars tailored to specifics. We believe organizational training is one of the single most important factor to increase productivity across a team.
Using XYZ Company, we started with core competencies that all team members are expected to be proficient with. Webinars are a convenient yet effective modality because barriers such as distributed workforce, travel, and logistics are completely minimized.
In order to capitalize on your webinar investment, it is important for employees to have additional learning that is easily accessible at their fingertips. Often adult learners only retain a fraction of information presented the first time around.
As we've mentioned before, employees are more motivated to learn things that have immediate relevance, so having supplemental support when they are in the midst of their work will help the reinforcement process. Things such as access to the recorded webinar, or even better supplemental task-oriented online video training, are ideal.
After their first webinar, XYZ Company pulled together a user group to discuss steps for the next event. See what is happening? By providing targeted training the team will often start to work more cohesively with the goal of increasing organizational skills and office productivity overall. Keep in mind these internal user group meetings should be kept short and on task.
Sometimes called "hybrid learning," blended learning simply uses a mix of training strategies to deliver the best results. There are different kinds out there.
The KnowledgeWave Learning Site provides the perfect blend of online learning with the right amount of personal touch. We blend self-serve training (recorded videos) with live events (webinars and classes) to meet the needs and learning styles of more employees.
For some learners, videos are all they need to achieve their learning goals. But videos aren’t always enough. Some learners really benefit from that live instructor guiding them through the material. That’s why live instruction and expert services are an integrated part of our system.
You will find that using these simple 5 steps your organization can use training to quickly boost team productivity, with the added benefit of building a more cohesive group.