The Microsoft Office suite, while the most commonly used software application among office employees, is also that which employees across the board tend to have the least knowledge. Chances are high that the vast majority of your employees haven't taken any sort of Microsoft training although they use Word, Excel, or PowerPoint on a regular basis. If associates in your workplace are using the Microsoft Office suite of applications without having gone through some form of Microsoft training, you may have major unrealized clogs in productivity and innovation. However, without a productive office to compare yours with, it's difficult to assess how much time is wasted because of ineffective software use.

Is your office staff working to its full potential without any sort of Microsoft training? Here are just a few ways that all employees can streamline their daily process with knowledge learned in Microsoft training:

Create Templates with .dot Files:

One of the simplest ways to save time and reduce error with Microsoft Word is by creating templates and storing them as .dot files. Whether it's a client letter, a sales pitch, an email, or a weekly report, just about every associate produces documents with the same basic structure day after day, week after week, year after year.

The time spent repeating formatting and text really adds up. Through Microsoft training, employees learn to create templates which they can then open, make changes to, send and save without spending time constantly repeating static and some dynamic information.

Create Macros:

An even greater timesaver than templates is the use of macros. Macros are a series of events that can be programmed to run automatically. A macro could be used to automate the process of anything from printing envelopes, to adding watermarks to a page, to creating a much more complex and customized chain of events.

Most people don't even realize that Microsoft Office applications have the ability to be programmed. In Microsoft training your employees will learn that Office is a highly intuitive application and how to customize it to shave an enormous amount of time and effort from daily activities.

Scheduling Events and Consolidating Calendars:

In a study conducted by Microsoft, the average employee rated himself or herself as being non productive for 17 hours per work week, or approximately 2 full days of work. One of the leading causes was sited as ineffective meetings. To overcome this challenge, Microsoft has developed a highly effective group calendar system that employees can learn to use in Microsoft training.

With the group calendar system, a meeting organizer can reserve a meeting room, view the availability of every meeting member, and schedule the meeting at a time when everyone can attend. With this essential knowledge learned in Microsoft training, the wasted time spent gathering individual for meetings, waiting for open rooms, and repeating information to those who missed meetings is drastically reduced.

How does it happen that entire workplaces can operate at only a fraction of their efficiency? Without Microsoft training, most people use Office applications on only a very rudimentary level. Because most managers haven't had any sort of Microsoft training either, for employees to only have a basic knowledge of these applications isn't cause for alarm. However, for HR teams and department managers with a goal to take the organization to the next level, Microsoft training is the ideal way to boost knowledge, revitalize the zest for innovation, and drastically improve productivity.