Excel Training & Classes for Employees: Review Corporate Training Options

Microsoft Excel is one of the most-used professional tools around the world. With more than 725,000 companies in the U.S. and 750 million people around the globe using this spreadsheet application, knowledge of Excel is a prerequisite for many jobs. Training your employees to work with Excel not only can help them work more efficiently but can also provide them with the skills needed to contribute in meaningful ways to your organization.

Read on to learn what to consider when looking for corporate Excel training options and the options that are available for onsite and online training.

What is Excel?

Microsoft Excel is a spreadsheet application created by Microsoft in 1985. Excel is a powerful and valuable resource for organizing data and numbers using functions and formulas. It also comes with graphing tools to help visualize data findings, a programming language known as Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) used to create macros, and advanced calculation capabilities. Excel works on both Mac and Windows operating systems. 

The cells within an Excel spreadsheet each contain data, like formulas, numbers, or text, which can be organized and analyzed. Excel is a useful tool for performing various calculations on spreadsheets. It can calculate statistics, perform repeated and advanced calculations, analyze data, and create graphical representations of the data, such as graphs, charts, and PivotTables. 

Read more about what Excel is and why you should learn it. 

What Can You Do with Excel Skills?

Excel has hundreds of features and tools that help users organize, manage, analyze, and visualize data. The following are just a few of the tools and features that make Excel the go-to for professionals around the globe:

• In Excel, users can add or average numbers in cells, locate high, median, or low values, count cells containing numbers, and find a product by multiplying cells. It’s also possible to delete extra white space and truncate numbers by removing fractions.
• Excel can learn your patterns the more you use it so that it can organize your data and ultimately save time. 
• Users can share workbooks with others in real-time to ensure that all collaborators have the most up-to-date version. 
• It’s possible to work on Excel files from the web and mobile and desktop devices.
• Users can now add data right into Excel from a photo. The Excel app enables users to take a picture of printed data with their iPhone or Android, then convert this image into an editable Excel table. This helpful trick helps users avoid manually entering hard copy data and is made possible through Excel’s image recognition capabilities. 
• Financial transactions can be imported into Excel so that users can organize and review their financial information and receive helpful insights toward making more informed financial decisions.
• Excel’s PivotTables help users perform analysis and summaries of datasets, regrouping spreadsheet data for more effective comparisons. By seeing data from different perspectives, it’s possible to get a more comprehensive picture of revenue sources and other vital information.

Benefits of Excel Corporate Training

Companies must evolve so that they can stay competitive. One way to do so is to invest in training your employees in the latest skills and technologies they need to work efficiently and effectively. By providing continual corporate training to your employees, they aren’t the only ones who will benefit; your entire organization will reap the benefits of their education. The more efficiently your employees work, the more tasks they will be able to complete and the more projects they will be able to finish. This, in turn, provides clients and customers with better service. Corporate training in a skill set like working with Microsoft Excel also has the added benefit of lowering employee turnover, increasing retention rates, and ensuring that the most talented and capable workers at your organization remain engaged and continue to work for you rather than the competition. This skill set can also provide your employees with more job security, which is valued across organizations.

Learning Excel is a skill set with a range of professional uses for businesses of all sizes and types. Those with spreadsheet skills are able to quickly perform calculations on data, organize it, and evaluate it. They can then share their findings with managers or senior staff so that the necessary information is disseminated, and decision-makers within the organization can use these conclusions to make data-backed decisions that will benefit the company as a whole. Therefore, it’s important for your employees to be familiar with the Excel interface and its many features and functions so that they can more effectively unearth information from vast datasets, and share this information with others.

Employees with advanced Excel knowledge have the skills needed to advance professionally in a range of positions. They can provide insights into workflow, finance and budgets, inventory levels, and project efficiency. They’re also able to read and understand the information on spreadsheets that are sent from customers, vendors, and other departments. They can use their Excel skills to design tracking systems for various operations or departments. 

Who Benefits Most from Excel Corporate Training?

Learning Excel not only helps your employees but will benefit everyone within your organization, as well as any external stakeholders like clients or customers. A recent LinkedIn Learning survey found that the vast majority of employees, 94%, value working for a company that’s willing to invest in their continued professional development. Corporate Excel training improves organization, increases workplace productivity, and allows your employees to visualize and share any important insights they find in the data their spreadsheets contain. Employers that provide free Excel corporate training create intellectual capital for their workers, in addition to reskilling or upskilling them. Corporate Excel training is a valuable investment because it benefits everyone within an organization, from employees to employer to those who purchase services or products from the company.

New Skills or Upskilling?

If you’re interested in providing corporate Excel training for your employees, you may wonder whether to invest in training all or just some of them. The answer to this question likely depends on your organization’s needs, its focus, and the type of work your employees do. If, for example, your company works primarily with data, it’s important that all employees be fluent in Excel, as they will regularly work with this spreadsheet app. If, instead, one department handles most data-related tasks, then it may be more prudent to invest in training just those employees to work with Excel. 

Because of how widely used Excel is, it’s likely that even if your organization isn’t entirely data-focused in every department, all employees will benefit from a better understanding of Excel. Unlike other skills, such as Python or machine learning, which are more specific to certain trades or professions, Excel knowledge has a range of applications at the workplace and beyond. Excel skills are transferable, which means that your employees who acquire spreadsheet training will not only apply these skills to their current job but carry them with them into their future endeavors.

Another option in terms of corporate Excel training is to customize it based on specific departments’ needs. For example, perhaps those working in HR or data analytics require advanced Excel training. In contrast, other employees who don’t regularly handle data may only need to have a familiarity with basic Excel features and skills, such as how to navigate the interface, perform functions like SUM or AVERAGE, and save or send spreadsheets. 

Onsite or Online?

If you think the employees at your organization would benefit from corporate Excel training, you may not be certain what learning format is most suited to their needs. Onsite training involves someone with Excel expertise and real-world spreadsheet experience coming directly to your organization to provide your employees with hands-on training. The training session or sessions will likely be conducted in a computer lab or a location where your employees can access their computers. Computer access is essential because it will provide access to Excel. As the instructor teaches, your employees can ask questions in real-time. 

Another corporate Excel training option is virtual learning. Online Excel training is available in the live online format and uses a teleconferencing platform like Zoom. Similar to in-person study, an expert instructor is still leading the discussion in real-time, but doing so from a remote location. Employees can still ask questions and receive personalized assistance. elearning is a popular training option in many industries and professions. Because Excel tasks are all performed on computers, learning Excel virtually lends itself to this format. In fact, corporate elearning is projected to grow by 250% by 2026. The flexibility of virtual Excel study doesn’t require a commute. It allows employees to study remotely, which is a good option for those who don’t live near a major college, university, or metropolitan area.

Training Options for Employees

If it would be helpful for some or all of your employees to learn to work with spreadsheets,

corporate and onsite Excel training is currently offered by Noble Desktop. Onsite, as well as live online training options, are available for Excel study, all of which are listed on Noble’s schedule. In addition, customized Excel training options are also available in which Noble designs a tailored curriculum designed to provide the employees at your organization with specific Excel skills. Customizing Excel training allows you to sculpt training around your company’s needs, as well as around any prior spreadsheet knowledge those at your workplace may already have. Additionally, Noble also offers flexible training options to ensure that studying Excel won’t interfere with your employees’ work responsibilities.

Noble offers beginner-level, intermediate, and advanced Excel training options, as well as Excel Programming with VBA. If you’re interested in providing Excel training for multiple employees, you can purchase group class vouchers. Discounts are available for employers who wish to buy them in bulk. These vouchers allow you to decide which courses would be most beneficial to your workforce. They also offer the flexibility of allowing employees to schedule their training as their schedules allow. Courses that are relatively short in duration are available so your workers can complete their Excel study without having to invest weeks or months training.

Supplemental Training Options

Noble Desktop can also provide alternative training options in Microsoft Excel. If you’d like supplemental Excel training for your those at your workplace, you can purchase vouchers to Noble’s bulk enrollment classes. This option ensures that your workers can learn Excel when it’s most convenient for them. The training can even occur outside of business hours to accommodate those who have full work schedules or are balancing other commitments along with work and study.

If you want to find out how Noble can help your employees master Microsoft Excel, contact Noble today.

Key Takeaways

• Microsoft Excel is one of the most widely used business tools in the world; it’s used by 725,000 organizations in the U.S. alone, and by approximately 750 million people around the globe.
• The vast majority (94%) of employees appreciate working for an employer that’s willing to invest in their ongoing education.
• Corporate Excel training provides a range of benefits for employees, employers, and any customers or clients that are served by your organization. Training some or all of your employees to use this industry-standard spreadsheet application is an excellent investment. It not only helps them perform their jobs more efficiently but also provides them with a range of transferable skills that will help them grow professionally.
• Comprehensive corporate Excel training is available through Noble Desktop, either in the in-person or online format. Interested employers can also customize Excel training so that it’s most suited to their organizational needs.