Do your users still use systems effectiviely? Whilst you may be looking at ways to upgrade and enhance your business systems, it is also vital to recognise the competency of your users, highlighting any skills gaps and knowledge drain.

1. Are your users skills as up to date as your
technology?
James Webb
15th May 2012

2. Who we are
13 years 40 staff
Specialist training consultancy
40+ countries 200 clients
50,000 people trained
…bringing people and technology together

3. Objectives
•To identify what considerations
need to be made when upgrading
with regards to your users
•To help you identify and take action
to remedy or prevent skills gaps in
your work force

4. What do we mean by “Users”?
• Using the system every day • System not core to their roles • Rarely touch the system
• Frequently Finance staff, or • Possibly use portals • May think that “this is
procurement teams • Often non-finance staff Finance’s job”
• Wide breadth of functionality • Varying skill level • Disproportionately high
support costs
• Varying engagement level
Core Users Self Service Users Occasional Users

5. What do we mean by “Users”?
• Using the system every day • Financial Accountants
Accountants
• Frequently Finance staff, or • Management Accountants
procurement teams
• Wide breadth of functionality
• Supplier Management
AP
• Pay runs
• Credit Control
AR
Core Users • Creation of invoices

6. What do we mean by “Users”?
Admin Facilities Housing
Credit control Buyers Buyers
Buyers Approvers Approvers
Emergency
Approvers Receipters
buyers

7. Why are users important?
•ROI
•Use of core resources
•Blockers

8. Business need for
Business need for
Blockers purchase
purchase
Create and save
requisition
No Send back to
Approve requisition?
requisitioner
Yes
Purchase Order
generated and sent to
supplier
Goods Receipt
completed
Invoice processed
Invoice processed

9. Long term role of training

10. Finding your starting point
•What are your core team spending their time
on?
•What are your common support calls?
•Getting help from the system and from ABS
•Who are your users?
•When did you last train them?

11. Common issues

12. Support from the system
•Business Efficiency Review
•Reports
•Open Items
•Incomplete

13. When did you last train – the forgetting curve
Ebbinghaus’s Forgetting Curve &
Experiement
Within 20 minutes 42% of the memorised
list was lost.
Within 24 hours 67% of what he learned
had vanished.
A month later 79% had been forgotten
with a meagre 21% retention.
Michael Doane, Doane Associates: Without some form of continuous training, end users are
hopelessly out of sync with changes to the business process, functional upgrades, and transfers or
new assignments – all roughly at a 10% annual attrition rate. The result is that user competency
degrades over time.

14. Interpreting the results
•Look at each issue individually.
•Look at each role individually – not just user
types, but by role or by department.
•Map the issues to the roles
•Look for patterns
•Decide in each case – could this be done better?
What is the risk of allowing this to continue?

15. Interpreting the results
•If no, what has been successful for that group?
•If yes, what are you trying to achieve – by group?
What is the issue? How can you sell it to them?
•Is there a system issue, or a people issue?
•Does the risk of continuing low skills warrant an
investment in training?

16. Taking action
Training
Training
Requirements
Analysis
Approaching
managers
Communications User champions

17. What to consider
Budget
Resources
•Internal resources
•Hidden costs
•Training rooms
•Training environments Constraints
•Locations
•Timings – holidays etc
•Elearning engagement

18. Understand TCO of Training
Options: -
• Train internal staff to train
 TTT Consultancy Costs
• Train internal HR trainers
 Back-fill Staff • Buy in skilled trainers
 Training Materials Things to take account of: -
 Ineffective Training • Training is a skill
 Catch up Training
• Trainers are required when
 Inefficient Training
 Unhappy Customers resource demands for testing and
 Disillusioned Employees go-live prep are at their highest
 Loss of best resources • How will you avoid Knowledge
Degradation?

19. The common law of business balance.
“It's unwise to pay too much, but it's also unwise to pay too little.
When you pay too much, you lose a little money - that's all. When
you pay too little, you sometimes lose everything, because the
thing you bought was incapable of doing what it was bought to do.
The common law of business balance prohibits paying a little and
getting a lot - it can't be done. If you deal with the lowest bidder, it
is well to add something for the risk you run, and if you do that
you will have enough to pay for something better.”
John Ruskin – Late 19th Century Poet, Writer and Philosopher.

20. Getting buy-in Role change
Upgrading
New staff
New sites
Audit
Benefits
Refresher
PROJECT
Bespoke
training
materials
Costs
TIME

21. What Optimum can do
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22. What next?
Define Develop Debrief
Design Deliver
-4 -3 -2 -1 Go-Live

23. Tel: 020 776 9876
www.optimum.co.uk
Optimum Technology
@Optimum_UK Transfer Ltd