How to get good IT training for your business

4 August 2009

Email article : Print article : More articles like this

Being computer literate is a very important skills for the owners and employees of small businesses. Being able to send emails, manage accounts, write letters and invoice customers using a computer can save you many hours a week, leaving you free to get on with running your business. In this article, we explore how to get the right skills in IT and computing to help your business.

What is good IT training?

Good IT training is training that is delivered at the right time, at the right pace and in the right way for you to achieve immediate benefit for your business. By investing in training, either financially or in your company's time, you should hope to achieve some return on your investment. This may be as straightforward as learning how to use a spreadsheet application more effectively or about a specific technology that will allow you to sell your services in a particular area.

Training delivery methods

It is important to remember that everyone learns at different rates, using different methods. Some people may prefer a formal classroom experience, others informal web-based learning.

There are now a number of ways you can learn about IT, all of which have benefits and drawbacks:

Long-term classroom- and/or work-based courses. These are most commonly offered in the Further Education sector. Day-release and evening-class options may exist.
One-off or short-term classroom courses. These are a popular offering from IT vendors and private training providers.
Consultant-led training. These are typically offered by an expert who will come into your place of work and act as an expert to your staff.
Online training, CD or book-based learning. This can be good for self-starters and possibly a cheaper option in terms of outlay; and it may be easier to fit around a buy work day.
Self-help/ad hoc. This is how self-taught people tend to become so; by ‘absorbing' information from books, magazines and the web. Not as structured or as purposeful as the other methods, but it can result in very skilled people.

You will also need to factor into the cost of the course, the time you or your team will spend away from the business. Losing staff for a 5 day course can have implications for their work load and the amount those left behind will need to pickup.

You should also bear in mind the purpose of the training, an option with all of these training types. Do you want it to:

Address a specific issue? (for example, how can I use a spreadsheet to manage finances?)
Cover some specific operating system, application or set of applications? (For example Photoshop, Word, AutoCAD).
Support your staff towards some recognised qualification?

Buying IT training

The internet is the obvious place to look for training courses and providers. Formal training portals, like BTP, Training Pages, or parts of larger portals, like Yahoo! are good if you're just starting.

If you're looking for training in the products of a specific vendor, e.g. Microsoft or Adobe, the company's website may have listings of its accredited training providers and for information on the courses available at local further and higher education establishments it is best to search for their websites specifically.

Training providers do vary in the style and approach they take. Some may not cover the type of material you need or they may offer a different approach to their training.

You should ask:

What materials will the candidates be able to retain after the training?
What qualifications or certifications does the trainer possess?
What certifications or qualifications does the training offered help the candidate towards?
If it's a classroom course, what facilities are available? What is the trainer-to-student ratio?
What scope will students have to dictate the material covered?

Other things to consider about IT training

When training your staff, there are a number of tips you might find useful to make the experience more productive:

Check the competence of potential trainers with referees from previous jobs. Because many consultant trainers often have few formal qualifications themselves, positive references from other reputable companies are very useful.
Select the right people in the organisation to train. If you have one expert who already does much of the work, consider training another person to mitigate the risk of him/her leaving, rather than concentrating more of your businesses skills in a single person.
Ask if separate learning materials need to be provided or if they are included in the cost, and incorporate their costs at the comparison stage.
Staff need to be free of distractions to absorb on-site training or when pursuing self-paced learning like online or CD-based training. This can be particularly difficult in the case of a single skilled IT person who is responsible for supporting an entire organisation and is constantly being called upon by other staff. You should set clear boundaries and establish ‘do-not-disturb' time for the training to take place. For these reasons, offsite training has special merits since it enforces a distance and ensures that the trainees are not bombarded with everyday support enquiries.
The importance of being given an opportunity to rapidly apply training after it has been followed cannot be stressed enough. Applying the skills learned quickly reinforces them, and stops them from being forgotten. It's not fair to assume that a person who has been trained six months ago in a particular skill, but has not yet had an opportunity to apply it, is still competent in it.

About the author

This article was first published as Getting good IT training on Business IT Guide, part of e-skills, the Sector Skills Council for IT and telecoms. The Business IT Guide has been developed in collaboration with industry experts to help small businesses find the right IT solutions for the issues that affect them.

Email:
eNewsletter archive

How to get good IT training for your business

Related articles