Technology and the Work Force

In the past two years, I have had the opportunity to work with over 2,000 clients age 50+ and found that there is a clear need to keep them cross trained on new technologies that are rolling out in the work place.

 

For 30 years, I have been a proponent and ongoing leader in work force training and professional development planning, design and execution. It's a great benefit to the individual, company and bottom line when regular training is offered in the midst of getting work done.

 

We definitely need fill in the blank training regularly for staff and management to make sure we all agree on the same things; what is Word, Excel, PowerPoint used for, and Outlook. What is good for work place email? What is the difference, the real difference between Open Source and Closed Source applications; paid versus free, subscription versus one time purchase. How does licensing really work?

 

Let's just cover Windows 10 for now, and Office 365. I might come back and expand on each subject shortly and/or fill in the gaps here. This is just something that I need to share this morning.

 

For example:

 

Windows 10

It's not Windows XP and Windows 7. It definitely takes some getting used to. It will not work on your old computer that is less than 4GB of RAM and a processor that is a Dual Core or less, or a hard drive having less than 100GB of free disk space.

 

It is a new operating system that came out for free to penetrate a market to get people off the Windows 7 platform, and also get people off the Windows 8.x platform. Remember, Microsoft skipped Windows 9 for a reason.

 

For example:

 

Office 365

While most of us older folks great up on either Word Perfect, Word for Windows 1.0/95/97/2003, Office 365 is not the same. It contains still the basics, Word, Excel, PowerPoint and this appendage called One Note.

 

Looking Foward

 

There should be daily brown bags in the lunch room to cover topics of interest that helps employees and leaders understand that a more trained work force, a happier work force. Training should not lead to attrition and turnover, but retention and empowerment.

 

At work, at home, and overall a happy and educated person is better than an unhappy and uneducated person. Let's all pitch in and plan and do something helpful for each other on a daily basis; starting with training, cross training, and other tips to keep us happy and safe using technology.

 

 

More to come...