Workers IT Skills Lacking

I dont mean to attack workers who still in front of computers all day long, chugging through their daily tasks. Rather I look at the beginners who struggle to believe they will ever master the computer, like those, they perceive, around them. Actually there are far more beginners out there that really need support.

Many workers would fail Level 2 Office Skills

One of the curses of becoming a teacher is you start marking everything put in front of you. Considering the old NVQ Level 1 Office Skills exams, more than 2 errors meant a fail. Marking to such standards focuses the mind rather more than usual. I wonder how many could actually pass it today.

I see the same areas lacking:

  1. badly laid out and formatted Word documents
  2. slack email management, especially with multiple recipient mailings
  3. very poor Powerpoint creation and presentation (yes still!)

Again, I’m not attacking them, the simple fact is the majority of office workers over 30 have had no formal training at all, or a few hours at most. Combine that with the inevitable adult thinking of “I know what I’m doing, I dont need to learn any more” – the problem here is, when were you last assessed, if ever? How do you know you do actually know, or are even right?

Most are self taught, which, given enough time, is great. However workplaces dont give you enough time, it has be be a quick answer that works (if only in this case) found on the Internet, or a 30 second explanation from a work mate. That’s just another piece of the jigsaw, not an understanding of the whole picture.

Dont worry, we can get the intern or new boy/girl to do it.

Sadly, despite years of learning Microsoft Office in schools, beating the last vestiges of creativity and thinking out of them, school leavers aren’t much better. This observation is based on the assignments they hand in. All those years haven’t made them skilled, but bored – is it good enough? Forget quality, just make it passable.

I’m not sure the average teacher is that skilled either, and I know many struggle with the new technologies of Zoom etc. They have had no more advantages than the office worker; despite being in education, they cant manage to attend even short courses either!

My point is simply we must stop pretending we’re good (enough) at ‘computers’. We’re not, otherwise you wouldn’t keep asking the younger generation to help you out.

  • everyone needs to push for training
  • low quality work must be rejected
  • skills means confidence and less stress

Would Steve Jobs have built Apple into a world leader
if he had not been so demanding over quality?