Cultivating a community of in-house Excel wizards

The Excel skills gap has been widely accepted for a long time at work, even if it creates inefficiency that multiplies throughout the organisation. This talk discusses how this was tackled this at Forvis Mazars to get more than 5,000 watches of internally generated content within 3 months, with interaction from users in over 80 countries.

The common misconception that there’s only one ‘Excel wizard’ in the office is addressed, as well as the importance of emphasising foundational Excel knowledge, whilst focusing on some key elements:

• Overcoming Excel anxiety: Many professionals hesitate to learn more in Excel due to a fear of the unknown, or being flummoxed when someone mentions a formula they don’t know. How can we move past this fear and motivate people to start somewhere?
• Self-sufficiency in problem-solving: Encouraging employees to seek solutions independently before turning to 'that' Excel guru. People will learn by finding the answers themselves and that will reduce burn-out for the people constantly putting their own work aside to help others in Excel.
• The power of ‘you don’t know what you don’t know’: Instilling a culture of humility and curiosity, where individuals are open to discovering new Excel functionalities and techniques they weren’t previously aware of.
• Recognition and rewards: Using modern training techniques and gamification as a form of recognition and motivation.

With Fay Bordbar