Employee training. Some people think of it like the ante in poker: it’s the minimum stake to be in the game.

If you are like us, then you think of it more as a strategic advantage. Invest in developing your team, and your team will be invested in the success of your organization.

In today's competitive business environment, there is no shortage of training methods available to you. But if you have been immersed in a training program or two before, you know there is a clear difference between an effective-training program and one that runs your team stagnant. With the vast number of training methods and resources available to you, it can be daunting to determine which of these sources are going to equip your employees with the tools they need for better performance.

Here at KnowledgeWave, we take pride in 2 key distinctions that really set us apart: our blended approach which combines video training with live online instruction, and our ROI calculator.

In a technology-driven world, an IT professional can feel overwhelmed by troubleshooting requests. When technical issues pile up the core of the problem is often overlooked. Thus, your IT professional or department gets trapped in a never-ending cycle of even the simplest of requests, such as teaching digital immigrants how to format headers in Word.

When it comes to operational business efficiency, you need the buy-in of upper management before incremental changes can be made. Ultimately, the solution you bring to the table must be less about leading the way with the latest software, and more about delivering value from the top to the bottom of the company. According to the Harvard Business Review: "[T]he CIO and IT must be seen less as merely developing and deploying technology, and more as a source of innovation and transformation that delivers business value, leveraging technology instead of directly delivering it."

As Baby Boomers continue to retire at an accelerating rate, their immediate successors within Generation X will only be able to fill half of their positions, leaving the remainder open to less-experienced Millennials.

Competency-based pay is a pay structure that rewards employees based on how well they perform in the workplace, rather than the hierarchy of their position or years of experience. Let's take a closer look at the advantages of this emerging pay-management structure.

We are constantly looking for ways to grow our business, but our biggest asset isn't our strategy, or monthly revenue, it's the people behind it driving that success: Your employees. In an article she contributed to Entrepreneur entitled "Want Your Business to Grow? Help Your Employees Succeed," Abigail Phillips writes: "We’ve all heard the saying that 'a team is only as strong as its weakest link,' but the number of business leaders choosing to ignore this sentiment is staggering, as they are more concerned with their own development and less so with their employees. Not a smart move. Investing time in your employees and giving them the tools they need to develop is incredibly important for output quality, morale and retention."

What is the key to a successful SharePoint migration? I think that we can all agree that a successful migration depends on a team of individuals who understand how it works! 

In any organization, leaders typically take the blame in any case of failure. Because of this your employees may be intimidated to take the next step and move up in their roles in fear of taking on new responsibilities. To change this behavior and create an environment where all levels can flourish and work as a team, view failure as a learning opportunity and make it a core principle of your culture—not a chance to place the blame.

Onboarding and training new and existing team members can be a complex process for many organizations and their managers. "Managing people is one of the most time-consuming and difficult aspects of any job," writes Barrie Gross of allBusiness. "Whether you have one direct report or 20, the responsibilities loom large and finding the time to follow sound management practices in everything you do as a supervisor can be challenging."

Office Mix is a powerful free Microsoft add-in for PowerPoint 2013 designed for businesses, educators, and students to easily create and share interactive online presentations.

Successful organizations are often determined by their process and their willingness to evolve. The more granular, and focused the organization is on planning, implementing, reviewing and refining its processes, the better. This method is often referred to as the plan-do-check-act cycle, aka PDCA, a four-step process used for continuous improvement. PDCA is an on-going and joint team effort that organizations use to ultimately improve products, services and internal processes for breakthrough performance.

You may ask yourself, “Should I get Office 365 or Office 2013?” “Are Office 365 and Office 2013 different?” “Can I get both Office 365 and Office 2013?” These are great questions to consider and I’d like to clear up a few things, including terminology.

Microsoft Access provides a user-friendly interface for managing your data on your desktop and beyond. What Microsoft Access users tend to love most about the online software solution is that it doesn't require its users to be well-versed in code. Its recent move to the cloud allows users to share and control important data like never before. Plus, it's easy to install, integrates well with other software programs and has superior ROI. Read on to learn more about the advantages and the disadvantages of Microsoft Access.

You should not overlook technology training as a way to both reduce wasted time and maximize the return on investment for that technology. While employees may use applications like Excel on a daily basis, incomplete training leaves many unaware of some of their more advanced features. When otherwise simple tasks are performed the hard way again and again, the time wasted is a direct consequence of undervaluing employee training.