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Do such things exist that are widely recognised?
I work in an industry where we get our jobs through having the right technical qualifications and experience. Offshore Oil and Gas.
On the whole those of us who work offshore on the actual rigs and ships are pretty rubbish when it comes to getting the best out of our MS products. I’m one of the better ones and I’d put myself at about 4/10.
We use Excel when an Access database would be better, very rarely integrate data across documents and programs. PowerPoint is shockingly deployed. Outlook nothing more than a message sending system. You get the picture...
I want to find an online, do at your own pace, MS Office products course that results in a qualification that would be recognised outside our own company: Word, Excel, Access, Outlook, P’Point.
My idea is that our company should pay for such a course, to be done voluntarily, such that those who wish can opt in to do it. Thereby making things run a bit more smoothly. The pay back for the employees is that they get to know how to do stuff better, and have something to add to their CV.
They exist https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/learning/certification-overview-mos.aspx but I wouldn't say they were particularly valued. My experience is a deep knowledge of Office products usually lies with the people that use them the most (e.g. finance people knowing Excel, PMs knowing Project, IT architects knowing Visio etc.). In my junior IT support days I wasn't required to have a deep knowledge of Office apps (beyond being able to install & configure them), although my first role did involve trying to explain what Lotus 123 was (and how it would help him) to a 60+ year old factory manager who hadn't used a computer before.
I also doubt an MS Office cert/training would actually give you the real-world applications knowledge you're looking for, you'd probably mostly learn about features no one ever uses (I've never done an MS Office exam though...)
There are in the states.....> https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/learning/certification-overview-mos.aspx < And from Reed.... https://www.reed.co.uk/courses/microsoft-office-specialist-mos
They are useful but not valued.
They are such generic tools that to learn everything takes a lot of effort, maybe not wrth it if you just do a specific task.
But it's eye opening when you see how some people use excel, and the time and faff they could save.
when an Access database would be better
said no-one, ever.
Just a thought,
There's obviously a value to your employer to get its workers better skilled. But what advantage is it to them to have "widely recognised" qualifications of the end of it? That's surely going to be a hard sell, "hey boss, can you pay for us all get these qualifications so that we've a better chance of sodding off to do something better somewhere else?"
In my industry, individual qualifications have value to the business on several levels. For instance, in order to attain Cisco Gold / Silver etc Partner status requires us to have a number of accredited staff in different areas, engineering, sales etc. It's also something we can use as a selling point to customers, "yeah, we have 40 fully qualified Mitel engineers." In order to meet legal standards we have regulations like "... to be completed by suitably trained personnel" and a cert is proof that we meet that requirement. I could go on, but I'm sure you get the idea. Compare and contrast with my previous workplace where I was working on internal systems, my boss sent us on training courses so we could do the job effectively, but refused to pay for the exams at the end as he saw it as a net detriment to the business. Working for an IFA, no-one cared how many certified Citrix engineers we had.
Not sure about the recognition but I’ve been arguing that the use of MS Office software is no different to any other tool and people should be trained in their use. I work onshore but it would make my life much easier if the guys offshore knew how to use the software. Decent bandwidth would be good too.
Could you take the courses and combined with your own knowledge become the site's "super user / floor walker"?
I've used this lot in the past - https://www.pluralsight.com/ - when cramming for the type of qualification Cougar talks about, or just trying to get my head round some new concept in Office 365, Azure, VMware, etc.
Though my stuff is mostly the 'back-end' infrastructure side, I see there are a lot of courses aimed at actually using Excel and the like e.g. https://www.pluralsight.com/courses/excel-2019-pro or https://www.pluralsight.com/paths/using-microsoft-office-2016 .
Might be worth your signing up for a free 10 day trial and giving them a go? My tip is to speed up the videos by 1.2x or even 1.5x, and skip the introductory slides, as some of the talkers are quite ponderous in their delivery.
Bandwidth is an issue offshore, so anything needs to not rely on video.
As some have said, what’s in it for the comnpany? Training us to be more attractive to other employers?
Well they already make us do many courses that are not a legal requirement, so that we as a crew are a more attractive proposition to a client. That, and it would help with efficiency. Less time faffing around trying to get something done Forgive the cliche, but work smarter, not harder.
They exist> https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/learning/certification-overview-mos.aspx
I did Microsoft certification years ago but because we were becoming a systems reseller and the certification was needed to allow us to sell MS products. Training was not in how to use the product, it was how to pass the exam and, for someone who had been using the products for a couple of years, did not involve learning anything new. I'd put them as a badge of competence rather than as of expertise. Today, as an IT Manager (obviously, STW and all that) I would not give any additional weight to interview candidates who had MS qualifications, preferring experience.
I work onshore but it would make my life much easier if the guys offshore knew how to use the software. Decent bandwidth would be good too.
remember trying fault find an Exchange server via satellite. click and wait. and wait. and don't get impatient and click again