#Microsoft365 #Office365 #DigitalLiteracy Please stop lying to yourself by saying that your employees are PC Literate. More than 70% of them are not. Don’t expect them to adopt Microsoft Teams or OneDrive / SharePoint or even start using PowerApps and Flow if they haven’t mastered the basics. That’s just not fair on them. These basics should be included in induction at least, but they’re not. Remember it’s never too late to fix things and that people don’t know, what they don’t know. So make this training compulsory – they won’t ask for it. (and believe me – most of the IT people I train don’t even know these basics, so don’t feel bad if you don’t).

For previous posts in my #Microso ft365Challenge go to the index page.

DISCLAIMER:  I WRITE ARTICLES ABOUT OFFICE / MICROSOFT 365. CONTENT IS ACCURATE AT TIME OF PUBLICATION, HOWEVER UPDATES AND NEW ADDITIONS HAPPEN DAILY WHICH COULD CHANGE THE ACCURACY OR RELEVANCE. PLEASE KEEP THIS IN MIND WHEN USING MY BLOGS AS GUIDELINES.

PC Literacy Training

Yes, yes. I’m still on the PC Literacy (Digital Literacy) war path. I simply cannot tell you how much success I get by introducing users to the basics first before I start teaching them on the rest of Office 365. We’re all a little bit broken and scared you know? Some of us fix it by riding fast bikes, carrying sheep around with us and drinking beer, but the rest of us suffer in silence. And they just reckon that’s how it’s supposed to be. “They’re not IT people, so it’s normal for them to struggle.” What utter nonsense, I’ll have none of that. Everyone deserves to feel competent and comfortable in the environments they work in – and the only way you get that right is through training and passing on the correct skills.

Happy Employees

If we want our users to become tomorrow’s power users, then we’ll have to step up our game. Please invest in your users by ensuring that they receive the basic PC literacy training. This will change the way they work, make them less frustrated towards their PC’s and technology AND free up time for them to get to the more important things.

In a recent article I spoke about the ROI on Training. It’s worth the read as you’ll be shocked at how high the ROI is.   #Microsoft365 Day 129: ROI on Training, transform your business!

Muscle Memory

The challenge is that most users go back to their normal lives after training and immediately forget what they’ve been shown. As with everything in life repetition breaks old habits and builds new ‘muscle memory’. Someone who’s been doing stuff ‘the long/wrong way’ for years, will have to for at least two weeks put a conscious effort in to remember to use the new method (shortcuts). The only way to do that is to be constantly reminded of it. In the past I created cheat cards for them to keep close while working, so they’ll be reminded.

Desktop Backgrounds

Today I had a great idea, what about creating a temporary desktop background for them, which they’ll see hundreds of times in a day to help them build those new habits. Once they’re used to it they can replace their desktop background again.

If you have a policy in place that pushes down desktop backgrounds, consider designing something cool that includes some basic tips and tricks. And yes, I said cool – not some horrible, boring corporate looking thing.

Anyhoo, I designed a couple of them and made sure that it would work on resolutions from 1280 x 1024 to 2256 x 1504. You’re welcome to use these, simply click on the image to open, then right click on the image and save to your pictures. Once in your pictures library, you can right click on the image to Set this as Desktop Background.

And don’t tell me you don’t have space on your desktop to ‘see the notes’, clean that baby up, stop saving your files there, create shortcuts to the folders in your OneDrive / Documents, and start using the Windows Button to search for Stuff. Seeing is NOT believing. Just because you can’t see it all on your desktop, doesn’t mean you can’t find it. Trust Tech and Trust yourself. You can do this 🙂

Purpose of this blog challenge:  I will write 365 blogs in 365 days around Microsoft 365. I did a similar challenge with Office 365, blogs can be found here. I won’t just be talking about the new Microsoft 365 subscription model. I will be sharing any news, tips and tricks around Office / Office 365 / Windows / Mobility and Security. And let’s not forget all the great new Apps & services available.  A lot of what I’ll share on Office and SharePoint will also be applicable to none “Office 365” versions.

You can also find me contributing to REgarding 365. I’m a member of a group of enthusiasts, sharing their stories, thoughts and opinions about Microsoft 365. Catch us at https://regarding365.com | @regarding365 on Twitter and regarding365 on YouTube