Many times I have met managers frustrated by their lack of knowledge in working with a computer, and their inability to complement this information. In most cases, the manager is offered a course. These courses, while high leveled, entail learning of functionality and capabilities of different applications and include much information, which is excessive to the needs of that manager and his limited spare time.
Training companies focus mainly on wealth of content and the professionalism of the lecturers. The outcome is that even courses considered excellent from a professional point of view will not suit busy managers. My advice to them is to seek help from a professional for personal training, only in the relevant applications. Even then, they should ask for training based on how to execute the necessary tasks, and not to review all functions available in the program.
For example: a manager who wants to know how to sort the list of tasks set in front of him by priorities and how to get an automatic reminder, should seek guidance in the use of functions related to the tasks included in the Microsoft Outlook program. There is no point in taking that manager through a complete course on Office, (even though Outlook is a part of the Office family). If that manager does not intend to use the many other functions included in Outlook, there is no point for him to even register for a general Outlook course.
Now, the question is what are really your needs?
In any case, I recommend that every manager should acquire a basic knowledge in working with the operating system (access to libraries, saving files, etc.). In addition, it is worthwhile to be updated on the use of the Internet browser, search engines and electronic mail programs. The great usefulness of these tools to get information and to make business contacts is relevant to any manager in any position.
I will review in short a number of examples on how to adapt the relevant application to be learned according to the required task:
| 1. |
If you deal daily with numeric calculations and decision making based on to numerical data (sales, profits, costs and so on), you should know the basics of working with the Excel application.
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| 2. |
When the required tasks have to do with managing lists and tables, and also with the extraction of information from content, you should know the basics of working with the
Access
program.
Managers who try to manage lists using
Excel
will be restricted
to the basic options only, since this tool was not intended specifically for this kind of tasks.
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| 3. |
In order to be able to create business presentations on your own, you should know how to work with the Power Point application.
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| 4. |
For managers interested in keeping an eye on all aspects of the current activities in the business (the number of sales yesterday, who was the main customer in the first two weeks of the year and the like), I would recommend him to learn how to operate the accounting software his business uses.
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