6 basic tech tips you should absolutely train your employees to do

So you’re not a techie, huh?

It doesn’t matter. You can still train your staff to use your IT systems without a so-called “expert.” Here are six basic things you can pass onto your employees that will make them more tech-savvy in your workplace. They’ll soon call you a computer guru!

1. Restart a computer by using the keyboard

Want to improve employee training? This one’s really straightforward. Pressing and holding down the “Ctrl,” “Alt” and “Delete” keys on a keyboard for a few seconds will restart a computer. If software suddenly malfunctions, this quick tip will let your staff reboot your computers and start fresh.

2. Send emails from a mobile device

Staff can send emails from their smartphone or tablets in or out of the office — all they need is an internet connection. Depending on the make and model of their phone, employees can download email apps from the App or Google Play stores, sign up for a new account (or enter their login details) and send messages to clients and colleagues. Yes, it’s that simple! Share this tip in your employee training.

3. Use Office 365

Office 365 is Microsoft’s suite of business productivity tools, which includes Office, OneNote and SharePoint. It’s an essential app for your small business — companies save about 30 minutes of lost productivity per user, per day, according to research. Your staff can use Office 365 on a desktop, laptop or mobile device to create presentations, write documents and share resources.

4. Improve employee training by teaching staff to use a VoIP phone

VoIP phones allow your employees to interact over the internet. It functions just a regular phone, but it works out significantly cheaper and facilitates communication. Using one of these devices is simple. Your staff can make and transfer calls just like they would with a normal handset. A screen on the device lets employees check call histories and directories.

5. Take a screenshot on a desktop or laptop

Your staff might need to take a screenshot when working on a desktop or laptop. They just need to hit the “Print Screen” key on a keyboard, open up an editing program like Microsoft Paint and click “Paste.” You can teach them this simple hack during employee training.

6. Add a bookmark

Internet bookmarks let your employees save their favorite websites so they can access them at a later date. On Google Chrome, users can click the Star icon in the address bar at the top of the screen. They can then access their bookmarks from the “Settings” menu. Over on Internet Explorer, users should head over the website they want to save, click “Favorites” in the top menu bar and then click on “Add to Favorites.”

These six simple tips will help your staff become more tech-smart in the office. While some of them might seem obvious, it’s still worth sharing this information with your staff in your employee training program.

Research shows that 36% of 18-34-year-olds and 25% of those over 55 find workplace technology stressful. If a little bit of tech know-how brings those stress levels down, we’re all for it.