Communication between a company’s IT department and the rest of the organization is often fragmented. We all accept that this is the norm because techies do one thing and everyone else does another. Sales, marketing, operations – they all basically require you to be human. IT requires you to be smart too. Which is why we applaud them for what they do. But every once in a while, the communication barrier between IT and the rest of the organization begs to be lifted.

In every company, big or small, there comes a point when the geeks need to come down from up above (or climb out of their basement) and hold a good old-fashioned training session. In the Unified Communications game, that time is now!

Photo by Kaleidico on Unsplash

Next-gen tech going to waste

According to a report by Nemertes Research (via TechTarget), employees at various organizations aren’t using their UC tools. First on the list of reasons is “lack of training.” In 2014, over 60% of respondents reported growth thanks to UC, but this year that number is down to 43%. The reason? According to Irwin Lazar, vice president and service director at Nemertes, IT departments rarely jump in to demo the tools to employees.

“IT does a pretty awful job training, marketing and trying to push the use of collaboration applications,” he said. “That’s the crux of it from the IT perspective — there’s not a push within IT to get people trained and up to speed on applications.”

It’s not a bug, it’s a feature

There’s a general misconception that UC applications can be tough to grasp. In reality, the concept of new is at the heart of the problem, and this applies to anything and everything. In the case of UC, only the IT division can step in to lend a helping hand.

At 4PSA, it’s in our job description to pass the information over to our service providers. We don’t leave any stones unturned, because any communication gap between service providers and us becomes a communication gap between service providers and their respective clients. We help them grow their business, they help us grow ours. In a sense, we are our customers’ very own IT department.

And so, we offer this invaluable piece of advice to other IT divisions out there: get off your butts and start training! 🙂