Skill up with Microsoft Learning Partners

“Certified teams responsible for core IT activities are generally 20% more productive than uncertified staff”

Trained and certified teams translate to performance boosts across the organizational and personal spectrum. IDC found that certified teams responsible for core IT activities are generally 20% more productive than uncertified staff.1 Skillsoft’s 2021 annual IT Skills and Salary Survey found that, after certification 49% of respondents felt that the quality of their work had improved; 39% of respondents were more engaged with their work; and 27% were faster at performing their jobs.

The key to effective upskilling

How do you ensure that your training maximizes these benefits for your own team? The answer: Look for a full-service, end-to-end training partner. Where you’re the expert in assembling a team that gets the IT job done every time, Microsoft Learning Partners are the specialists in ensuring your team has the right skills to tackle today’s tasks and tomorrow’s challenges, from identifying the skill gaps to filling them and keeping them up to date.

The critical front end: Start with the end in mind

To get what you need from your training investment it’s critical to identify the skills your team needs and what your desired end-state is from the beginning. This is probably the most important benefit of end-to-end services. Microsoft Learning Partners help you identify and focus your learning initiative on the specific requirements and impact you need from the program. They’ll develop a deep understanding of your pain points and motivations and proactively guide you and your team to learning solutions you may not otherwise have considered. They’ll start with assessments to identify knowledge gaps. They may even help you create a career or role framework for families of jobs to help you plan customized learning pathways with professional certifications that support your skill and development priorities.

Keeping the learning process on track.

It can be daunting to plan out even a single person’s training and certification plan. A team-wide learning initiative goes well beyond that. It must meet not only the goals and performance needs of the team, but also help fulfill the career desires of your team members, keeping them satisfied and moving forward in their careers. This is exactly what Microsoft Learning Partners do. They can take the burden off you and your team by managing multiple trainers, ensuring the curriculum is aligned, coordinating the activities, and even monitoring and managing the program’s progress. That’s a lot taken off your plate.

Microsoft Learning Partners have the end-to-end capability to help you create an experience that meets your unique business objectives. They give you a single source—a true partner with the capacity to plan and offer everything your team needs and then to help you see that larger journey, as well as the individual training journeys within it.

The three keys to a successful training initiative

As you plan your approach and engage with Microsoft Learning Partners, keep in mind these three areas where Learning Partners make the biggest difference to you and your team. Ask them these simple but essential questions as you consider a good Learning Partner fit:

• Scale. Can they work locally and globally to adapt their programs to your organization’s needs, such as rolling out learning across time zones?
• Flexibility. Does your learning partner demonstrate the flexibility to adapt their deliverables to your changing requirements and business constraints?
• Speed. Technology changes from month to month; can your learning partner keep up while anticipating the next emerging innovations?