There is only one valid reason a business spends money and that is to make money. It is called ROI. Two significant expenses for most businesses are knowledge workers and the technologies to make them more productive. The ROI for computers, software and handheld devices is that they allow knowledge workers to do things more quickly, do things more effectively and do things they just couldn’t have done otherwise.
One of the biggest threats to the ROI on knowledge worker technology is knowledge of the technology itself. Imagine Phil sitting at his desk staring at the computer for minutes on end because he can’t figure out how to get it to do something he needs to do. What is that dripping sound I hear? It is your knowledge worker technology ROI going down the drain. Phil turns in his chair and says, “Hey, Anne, do you know how to …”. What’s that sound? The forecast for today didn’t say anything about rain! Expecting knowledge workers to figure out the intricacies of these increasingly complex knowledge worker technologies on their own is a very questionable investment decision. Sending knowledge workers out for endless training sessions from which they will retain very little and use even less is an equally questionable investment decision. That is why PC Helps specializes in delivering just the knowledge that is needed just when it is needed.
One of the primary reasons people miss the value of timely and targeted support and training for knowledge worker technologies is that it is difficult to appreciate the total value of saving a knowledge worker time. To keep things simple, let’s say that a support session or targeted training saves a knowledge worker just five minutes per working day. Over the 22 working days in a typical month that is 110 minutes saved. If the worker is on the job 11 months a year that is slightly over 20 hours a year. If that worker continues to save just five minutes a day for six years it has saved three entire work weeks. What is the cost of employment, including individually assignable overhead such as taxes and benefits, for a knowledge worker for three weeks?
