Time is one of the biggest challenges for most businesses. The lack of it, the need for more… but when it comes to training, the focus is on keeping it succinct, short and to the point.
When we started out, all those years ago, our training was delivered over two full working days, it’s incredible to try and compute that. Fast forward to today and we’re delivering 90-minute sessions. We’ve found that by condensing the teaching into 90-minute blocks, it’s more practical for booking out diaries, but more importantly, information is retained for longer.
Finding the balance between content and attention is a fine line, and one we’ve taken time to adapt to ensure our participants get the most from any training session, whilst keeping it a realistic goal for busy businesses.
A 2015 Microsoft study showed that as a result of the busy nature of all of our lives, there is an abundance of distractions which has shortened the human attention span to just eight seconds. Eight seconds is less than the attention span of a goldfish. That’s a huge challenge for anyone to overcome, but when we’re working to educate and inform, it’s crucial to keep things interactive, concise and short.
How many people would still attend a two-day training course and, more importantly, how many people would be able to retain that level of learning?
Our focus sessions are a great way to consider bitesize learning. Delivered in just 90-minutes, either online or in-person, we focus on one area in particular, such as Microsoft Excel, for example, to deliver targeted learning, whilst still including the relevant 365 links such as One Drive.
This focused approach has proven really successful for businesses where there are different levels of understanding and expertise, to ensure it’s not too simple for some, or too advanced for others – helping to target inefficiencies on Microsoft 365 within your business in just one hour and a half.
We have one client who produces weekly sales reporting via Microsoft Excel. Due to the management set-up, over eight different stores need to report, which also means eight different understandings of Microsoft Excel. This, unsurprisingly, meant that each week there were inconsistencies in the reporting. Not only did the spreadsheets take longer to complete initially, but over an hour each week, per store, was wasted in having to re-do the reports.
Over the course of three focus sessions, to support the managers’ different skillsets, we improved their level of knowledge and understanding, saving at least eight hours a week, that’s almost a full working day!
If one of your business goals is to improve efficiency, this is definitely one way to achieve that.
How is your business using Microsoft 365? Are there areas you think you could improve on?
https://365trainingconsultants.co.uk/services/focus-training/
