Here at Dragon Corporate Training, we’ve delivered thousands of hours of training, to thousands of the finest employees in the best companies across Canada and Europe. Yet wherever we go and whichever company we work with, we bump into the same lazy employee. Typically, this employee has some of, if not all the following traits:

• has been with the company for a few decades at least
• has seniority over their contemporaries, so it’s difficult to let them go
• usually only utilizes about 20% – 25% of their capabilities
• causes difficult situations for staff working there
• can turn a ten-minute task into a whole afternoon of work
• seems to love slowing people down instead of helping everyone work more efficiently
• seems reluctant to perform anywhere near their potential
• has bursts of industry and genius that has you asking: “why can’t they be like that all the time?”

Starting to recognize this state of affairs in your organization?

This member of staff can literally be costing your organization tens, if not hundreds of thousands of dollars every year with their behaviour; yet year after year we tolerate them, spend money modernising them, and continue to expect other staff members to work alongside them.

Who is this ne’er-do-well employee who causes all the disruption?

Microsoft Office of course!

Go back and read what you thought was about a human employee and you’ll soon see that everything applies to this brilliant, yet (for most people) frustrating piece of software. If this was a real employee we’d have HR involved, there would be disciplinary procedures and we’d be searching for a replacement the first chance we got.

The secret to turning this problem employee into a company star? Teach your staff to use it properly! You’ve probably spent many thousands of dollars on licence fees, upgrades and installations over the years; you continually provide the best computer hardware for it to run on; yet you still expect your employees to work things out for themselves with little or no formal training and education. Oh, and by the way, “they can always Google it” does not really count as an ongoing education and training strategy!

Do your organization and your staff members a huge favour. Formulate a training plan for them, give them access to a Microsoft-qualified educator and watch them unleash the potential of this truly amazing, yet criminally misused product called Microsoft Office.

We’ve named and shamed your laziest employee – now it’s up to you to go fix them!