Member Article

How cloud based training can save growing businesses time

Running a business stretches anybody’s work-life balance to the absolute limit. Business owners have to closely manage their valuable time and make the most of every day spent in the office. Unintentionally or not, an inefficient use of time is partly responsible for the lengthy hours that business owners and employees are working in an average week. Not only can this mean days are taken up completing time-consuming administration, but additional stress and pressure piles up.

Recent research highlights that micro-business owners work an average of 52 hours a week, 63 per cent longer than the average worker[1]. Despite this, there is increasing expectation to continually develop skills. However, with business owners trying to drive growth while being continually prohibited by a lack of time, training often falls to the bottom of the pile, despite its importance.

Cloud based training can ease this struggle, enabling business owners and employees to access the training platform at any time of the day or night. This gives the flexibility to brush up on skills that that wouldn’t otherwise be developed.

We support our customers by providing software that eradicates time consuming day-to-day frustrations, but we know that a number of the businesses and accountants we work with don’t have the time to invest in training. This means that knowledge of the solution erodes over time. Online training provides an opportunity for customers to brush up on skills at a time that’s convenient. It is a perfect way to keep up to date with Continual Professional Development and makes it easier to complete refresher training ahead of infrequent tasks, which are particularly important for accountants dealing with technical legislation on behalf of their business clients.

The flexibility of cloud based training means that it can be split up into bite-sized modules, some as compact as five minutes, to allow key information to be digested incredibly quickly, without taking up hours which could be spent on business critical activities.

Including short videos as part of the online training not only provides information almost instantly, but also reduces the time management spend on training colleagues. Businesses can expect to save huge amounts of time – our own cloud training services can save our customers 22 hours a week.

Online cloud based training is the most cost effective and flexible training method available to businesses today, allowing employees and managers to enjoy the benefits of learning around the clock.

With micro-business owners working harder than ever, there is an increasing need to make the most of every minute of the working week. Completing essential learning in bite-sized chunks is key to freeing up valuable time that could be spent growing a business.

[1] Research by call handling firm Penelope (2013)

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Phill Robinson, CEO, Iris Software Group .