Why Your Company Needs to Teach Employees to Use Excel
This is a guest post written by Evelyn Lopez.
Excel is a potent business tool. Some business owners mistakenly think of it exclusively for accounting purposes. In truth, Excel can be used in some capacity by every department and individual. It’s incredibly useful for organizing lots of information and data into a format that is easier to derive insights from. It can speed up day-to-day processes and ultimately make an organization run more efficient.
To unlock all of these benefits and more, businesses should think about training their employees on how to utilize Excel. Saving time and money and staying more organized are indeed compelling reasons for a company to want to ensure its employees are adequately trained at using Excel. But, if you need more convincing, here are 6 more reasons why you should invest in Excel training for your employees.
They May Not Be As “Proficient” As You Think
Excel is a skill that many applicants and employees claim to possess. “Proficient at Excel” seems to be a fairly common attribute, yet there’s a wide range of possible skill levels that fall under the umbrella of the word “proficient.” While you may think that the majority of your employees are experts in Excel, the reality is that many don’t have a lot of the know-how to really unlock all of its benefits. Alternatively, they may be working with the knowledge that is dated because the program is frequently updated. Learning Excel in 2009 doesn’t do as much good after ten years have passed.
It Can Be Taught On-The-Go
Because most of your staff is, at the very least, familiar with Excel already, you don’t need to dedicate a lot of time to training. The beauty of teaching Excel is it can widely be taught on-the-go through lessons that apply to each individual’s duties. This will allow everyone to learn Excel lessons that are actually useful and will immediately impact their day-to-day work life.
Arguably, the most frictionless way to teach Excel on-the-go is to encourage employees that have already demonstrated superior knowledge in the program to offer their guidance to neighboring employees.
It Isn’t Just For Numbers
As touched on before, there is a popular misconception that Excel is only useful for crunching and organizing numbers. While it is a powerful accounting assistant, Excel is usable in some other capacities. For starters, the ability to arrange lots of information in convenient and organized cells helps make sense out of complex material and allows us to see patterns that would otherwise be invisible.
Excel is also a powerful tool for creating schedules, to-do lists, time logs, forms, project management charts and much, much more.
Gets Everyone On The Same Page
There’s a good chance that your business is already using Excel in certain areas, like accounting, CRM or inventory management. While the program saves individuals in these departments lots of time, as those spreadsheets move to other departments, where Excel isn’t used often, it can create roadblocks. Excel training gets all of your employees on equal footing when it comes to navigating spreadsheets and charts. This makes it easier for information to be communicated across departments or during meetings, especially when in the format of spreadsheets.
Simplifies Common, Cumbersome Calculations
On the other hand, when it does come time to do some number crunching, Excel can save some serious time. Learning even some fundamental Excel formulas can make quick work of having to add large lists of numbers together or perform complex calculations. Plus, there’s less risk of human error causing miscalculations and inaccurate figures.
When new data has to be entered, you don’t have to start the calculation all over; Excel does it for you. This will save your company and its employees lots of time, which can then be spent on more critical tasks.
Other Businesses Use It
Even if your business only relies on Excel for a couple of small tasks, you should still consider teaching employees basic Excel tips and functions because other companies that you do business with may use the program to a greater extent. Thus, being familiar with the program, even if you don’t use it much, is also essential. After all, you wouldn’t want your employees to be confused or at a loss if these companies send over important information business spreadsheets.
Conclusion
Excel has a lot of business potential, yet many organizations fail to unlock all of its value because their employees are not trained in using the program to its full ability. If you genuinely want your company and its employees to work as a cohesive and efficient unit, Excel training can help get you there.