Making time for training – Why bother?

Meet Sadie. She started her job at Our Nonprofit last month. Our Nonprofit invested in a pretty nice software package that Sadie now uses and for the most part she likes using it. The software company offers free training, but Sadie didn’t sign up, she just jumped right in. She’s smart, and it didn’t take her long to learn the basics. Now Sadie’s to do list is a mile long and she doesn’t have time to learn how the advanced features work.

How can you justify taking an hour out of your work day for software training?

Your organization is losing some of their return on investment if the software isn’t being fully utilized. Being given proper training on the software, from the software provider, will:

• Make you more effective because you find out about features you might not have otherwise discovered.
• Make you more efficient because less time is being spent floundering around trying to figure out how to do routine tasks – for example: You may be manually setting up campaign reports that the software can automatically do.
• Allow you to sidestep common mistakes because the software provider also supports the software, they can point out not only best practices but also some things to avoid.

What if the training doesn’t answer all of your questions?

This is where having great support for your software comes in. You shouldn’t have to pay an extra fee for getting your questions answered, in order to understand your software better and use it more effectively. You should have access to support staff and documentation that:

• Doesn’t waste time – Able to quickly have your questions answered
• Knows You – Someone who knows your organization and is able to give you a personalized answer
• Doesn’t charge extra – Training and support should be included with your software, without a limit of how many times you can utilize them