Learning & Development Archives

The 5 biggest Excel SINS of 2018!
January 6^th, 2019 in Excel, Learning & Development
As a trainer, I get to see inside a lot of companies and sometimes the confessions from delegates on our courses are horrifying! Of course, no-one is born knowing how to use Excel … and so many people self-educate as they find a ‘gap’ in their knowledge. But the problem with this is you are often missing out and doing things the long way around. Or worse still, as some of these sins show us, employees are actually placing their…
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How to ask your boss for IT Training
December 17^th, 2018 in Learning & Development
It is never an easy conversation to have with your boss when you know that budgets are tight, everyone is feeling the pinch, there is pressure from the top downwards, and you feel that you and your colleagues just need a little help or training. In a perfect world, where the distractions are not there, and common sense plays a little more part in the perspective it would be obvious that better-trained staff deliver a better result – but that…
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How to turn training into profit
August 17^th, 2018 in Blog, Learning & Development
Nowhere is the idea of value for money in training more succinctly described than the saying, ‘if you think education is expensive try ignorance.’ It speaks volumes, but it also misses one very crucial point! The average cost of a driving lesson today is £24 and most would agree that it is money well spent – if you are learning to drive. In fact, after taking the average of 47 hours worth of lessons (as recommended by the Driving…
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Thinking of buying e-learning?
December 17^th, 2017 in General, Learning & Development
Some of the advances I’ve seen have been game-changing, others are more akin to revolutionary, and some just a result of natural progression.Now I don’t claim to be a visionary, and neither am I old-fashioned. In fact, I am very much one of those people who started my career in the pre-digital age, then learned and embraced each new development as it came along. Technology has been the key driver behind most of the advancements in business…
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When should you upgrade?
November 16^th, 2016 in Learning & Development
Upgrades: Get all of the gains, and bypass the pains! Some upgrades are necessary, even critical, for a business; while others tend to be optional or merely a matter of preference. In either case, there is a preconception (based on previous experience) that there will be interruption, disruption and hassle as a result of the process. Windows 10, for example, gives much higher levels of security meaning it is seen by most as a critical upgrade…
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Excel – view spreadsheet totals with one click!
November 11^th, 2016 in Blog, Excel, General, Learning & Development, Spreadsheet
Don’t get lost in your budget Excel spreadsheets anymore! With this very useful shortcut you can streamline the information in your workbook to reveal what is relevant, simplifying your data within seconds. It’s always useful to see all the data in finance spreadsheets like a cash flow forecast or a profit and loss account, but sometimes you just want to see the important numbers. Any type of spreadsheet which contains formulas can…
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The 9 steps to Training a clear IT vision!
September 22^nd, 2016 in Blog, General, Learning & Development
In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is King! Being ‘the expert’ is quite a burden to carry and one that is rarely beneficial to the carrier or those it is being carried for. In fact, it always leads to misinformation. I’m not talking here about the professional ‘expert’ whose job it is to understand everything to the nth degree and teach others, but the office ‘expert’ whose real job is something else. This is the person who…
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This is not the time to start resting on your laurels
September 1^st, 2016 in Blog, Learning & Development
As the Olympics draw to a triumphant close for the GB team, there are so many lessons that we can all glean from the experience. People often think that you only learn from your mistakes, but that doesn’t make any sense at all does it? In fact, it would be a huge mistake just to revel in victory and not study in detail what made it happen. The very phrase ‘resting on your laurels’ could not be more appropriate for this example because it…
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How to Harness the Power of Your Team
July 26^th, 2016 in Blog, Learning & Development
Cloud computing from 30,000 feet Last week I was working in the cloud while soaring gently above them! In an example of just how quickly technology is moving forward, it seems that another useful function on our smartphones, laptops and tablets has now become redundant. The ‘flight-safe’mode is now defunct and unnecessary, and in-flight WiFi has arrived. So, while on a short break to visit my grandchildren for a week (the raison…
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If you think education is expensive, try ignorance
June 23^rd, 2016 in Blog, Learning & Development
Education – is it a cost or an investment? Sometimes observations on life are so powerful that lots of people want to lay claim to the original thought. This is one such ‘disputable source’ quote; but for me, it sums up so many people’s poor appreciation of training. “If you think education is expensive, try ignorance.” There are so many critical areas of our daily lives in which we have forgotten where, or how we learned to start…
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