Instructor-led MS Office Training is the most popular form of training delivery and the main reason is that ‘people like to be taught by people’. It is popular and effective because the trainer is leading the training, hopefully keeping everyone engaged, stimulated and focused whilst learning is being delivered and if anything is not understood then questions can be asked and hopefully answered.
Few organizations have training delivered for just the sole benefit of the delegates, there is always a reason for the training and always a bottom line. But what is the balance between best training and best value?
It is easy to see the cost/benefit logicof delivering MS Office training in a seminar to 500 rather than 8 delegates, however the greater the number the less effective the training – less interaction, more background noise less opportunity to ask questions and less delegate satisfaction.
There are other means and methods of delivering Microsoft Office training, 1-to-1 training allows an individual to have delivered to them a totally focused session with the trainer, perhaps alongside them at their desk, perhaps going through issues and problems on the files that they actually use at work. Usually one or two hours is enough for both the delegate - and the trainer as it can get very intense! The trainer can also deliver a whole series of 1-to-1’s going from delegate to delegate, with usually 5/6 people being seen per day.
Drop-in sessions for ‘anything and everything’ within MS Office training to more specific application like Microsoft Excel, MS Outlook or PowerPoint where a time and room are advertised within an organization and either people turn up if it is something they are interested in or someone administrates the process. In my experience these sessions seem like a great idea however they are usually under-subscribed.
Another type of training deliver is the workshop, which means that there is perhaps a specific topics like “Creating a template for PO’s” or “Mail Merging Christmas Card labels” and the Trainer leads the workshop with no formal agenda. It generally works best where everyone is from the same department or working in a particular role.
Remote Training is usually when the trainer is on the end of a phone to 1 or more delegates. Both sides of the phones need to be able to see the same screen using applications such as ‘Gotomeeting’ or ‘WebEx’ or ‘Join.me’. Whether training an application from the Microsoft Office suite of applications or anything else it can be instantly started so is often used in conjunction with a Help Desk or held at the same time every week to dial in your issues.
The final training type that can be utilized by organisations is ‘Blended’ training which is a mixture of Instructor-led,Seminars, E-and even Remote training. This of course the most costly to organise and deliver. However if done well, can be extremely comprehensive. One of its main advantages is that it can work all users and more importantly incorporate most of the different ways that people learn.
