ICT Management > Training
Using Your Computer > Getting Yourself Trained

Case Study: What Difference Can ICT Training Make To Your Organisation?

By Natalie Clarke

This article looks at three organisations that each sent a member of their staff to learn Microsoft Office skills and complete their ITQ. It describes how ICT training has been beneficial to the organisations in helping them achieve their goals.

You’ve raised the funds, you’ve bought the equipment, but do you know how to use it? ICT training – often the missing piece in the jigsaw – can allow you to get the most out of your ICT systems.

A range of ICT qualifications are now available with some courses, such as the work-based ITQ, being fully funded.

The Bangladeshi Welfare Association

The Bangladeshi Welfare Association (BWA) offers advice, information and assistance to the Bengali community.

BWA are one of many organisations that acknowledge that ICT is essential for everyday working life. They believe that with training, their members of staff will become more effective and efficient ICT users and workers all round.

The future for BWA is already changing as a result of sending one full-time volunteer on ICT training. Bidhan described how with his new skills and confidence, the organisation will save money by reducing its need to outsource ICT support. He is now able to run the office much more smoothly, by becoming a more productive worker with administrative tasks requiring less time.

During the time Bidhan spent at the training centre, he was able to work on producing professional looking funding documents, such as BWA’s strategic plan and budget. As a result of his increased understanding of how Microsoft Office works, Bidhan has also been able to set up templates for future use and automate many of his routine procedures.

Back at work, Bidhan aims to use his ICT training to make existing documents communicate more clearly and concisely to staff and beneficiaries. He would like to further his ICT understanding by undertaking more advanced training particularly in  Microsoft Outlook and Publisher.

As for BWA as a whole, they have seen the benefits of one volunteer being ICT trained and are now in the process of setting up an ICT training schedule for other staff members.

London Playing Fields Foundation

The London Playing Fields Foundation (LPFF) protects, provides and promotes playing fields in Greater London.

LPFF – similar to BWA – believe that ICT is at the heart of their organisation, effectively allowing it to delivering its mission. LPFF sent their Administrative Officer on ICT training to specifically learn more about creating presentations to help promote the charity.

Jenna described how the training both refreshed and updated her knowledge in Microsoft Word and Excel, whilst also allowing her to learn new skills in PowerPoint. She explained how she is now aware of features in the software which are often under utilised yet powerfully useful. These ranged from the format painter in Word to the somewhat more complex use of absolute cell referencing in Excel.

The format painter is a basic but often overlooked function – found on the standard toolbar – which allows text and some basic graphics formatting to be quickly applied. Jenna commented that knowing about the format painter, would now help alleviate the frustration that is often attached to repetitive and drawn out formatting tasks.

Additionally, understanding how to use absolute cell referencing in formulae in Excel means that Jenna now has more control over creating and updating her spreadsheets quickly and accurately. Absolute cell referencing is especially useful for referring to constant values particularly if the spreadsheet involves VAT, discount values or salary increases.

During the ITQ training, Jenna was also able to make a start on creating a series of presentations that will present the charity’s aims to potential funders. This involved using images that matched their professionally designed website, thus allowing consistency throughout all of the charity’s marketing material.

Additionally the training Jenna attended has benefited her colleagues and LPFF as a whole. She feels more comfortable in trying out different functions on the computer and her improved confidence allows her to show other staff members how to better carry out a task.

Importantly, Jenna also believes she can now transfer her skills into other software and produce the charity’s long awaited newsletter.

For the future of LPFF, they have seen how the time investment of training has benefited them and hope to send Jenna on a further training course in Microsoft Access database skills. This is a step closer to their vision of taking football league bookings over the internet to increase the support and uptake of their mission.

Saivan Care Services

Saivan Care Services provide residential home and care for five adults with learning disabilities.

Danwantee, one of two managers at Saivan Care, undertook ICT training due to her position in the organisation as an ‘accidental techie’ meaning she would often be called upon to maintain the ICT systems.

Danwantee hoped that by learning new ICT skills, Saivan Care would become a more environmentally friendly organisation through improved efficiency and less use of paper. The future of the organisation has subsequently improved by Danwantee being able to share her new ICT knowledge with staff members and in helping them to troubleshoot their ICT problems.

From attending ICT training, Danwantee is now able to see the possibilities of the software she uses and how it can help her at work. She explained that she learnt skills that she thought she didn’t need at work but actually does!

Like Jenna from LPFF, these skills ranged from the basic format painter to help with repetitive formatting, to using heading styles to automatically and effortlessly create contents list for reports and performance reviews.

Danwantee was particularly impressed with discovering how to enhance the appearance of her weekly rotas and staff posters. Through discovering clipart, how to manipulate graphics and add borders – complimented by some design tips – she is able to create professional yet visually appealing advertising material that captures her intended audience.

Notably, Danwantee also felt able to put her new ICT skills into practice the very next day at work; producing improved, professional and accurate documents that help her with her management tasks of monitoring, training and book keeping.

ICT Training: Complete the Jigsaw

Danwantee is like so many other ICT trainees, who having started one ICT training course, are now enthused to try another and take up adult learning once again.

Additionally, as is often the case after ICT training, colleagues will be tempted to ask you to explain a process or a technique which you are effortlessly now able to carry out. However, ICT and related training are no longer a discrete role delivered by one person or team. This is especially true in the voluntary sector with many staff carrying out roles separate to their defined job.

It is important that all staff – whether volunteers, administrative officers or managers – are able to make the most out of their organisation’s ICT systems.

It may be Microsoft training that you need, to help you set up templates and automate procedures, or it could be more advanced graphics and web design skills to help formalise the organisation’s brand. Whatever the training need, ICT training will improve daily working life, fill the skills gap needed to carry out a particular role and allow the organisation to operate cohesively and professionally. This ultimately will leave you and your organisation with more time to concentrate on reaching out to your beneficiaries and members.

As shown in these case studies, ICT training is a great step in allowing you to get the most out of the ICT systems and the funding allocated and locked inside these resources. If you feel inspired to learn more about ICT, the first step is to identify your ICT training needs. This can be done with the help of the Knowledgebase article on Training Needs Analysis (TNA) which includes a sample Training Needs Analysis questionnaire.