ERP System Training

March 20th, 2018
By Cheryl Reinertsen

ERP system training is one of the many important tasks to consider when planning your implementation. Training can help your staff understand the benefits of the system, both to them and to the company. It can help identify any new processes, new responsibilities, and questions about the system. Training is an opportunity to make sure everyone knows the procedures, their responsibilities in those procedures, and how to accomplish them with your ERP system. These benefits aren’t limited to new implementations – your business can benefit from training if you’ve hired new employees, or if it’s been a few years since your original implementation.

When training, keep the information relevant to the users. Don’t give warehouse workers reason to ask why they’re in your session because you’re spending too much time talking about how customer service reps take orders. Including a system-wide overview is necessary, but training is most useful when the people attending can relate it directly to their daily work.

Be sure to include practice sessions for your attendees. Each type of transaction should be followed through the system in detail by users or representatives from each department involved. This will help ensure everyone is familiar with the transaction flow and that all of the steps are followed and understood. Remember to include managers and users who maintain your system. Hands-on sessions are important because users are able to actually experience and get familiar with the software. This allows them to witness the system in action and interact with it. This also helps improve process plans, and ultimately project success.

If possible, leave users with documentation and training aids. Representatives from each department may find them helpful when they pass on their training to their co-workers. Printed exercises and questions with answers will allow users to practice what they learned and improve what they know. Recordings of the training sessions may also be useful for future training sessions; as new employees arrive, they might watch the videos and use the training aids to get started. And remember to provide a contact point for when they need help in the future. Finally, always leave feedback forms so you know how helpful the training is, and use it to keep improving your training sessions.

Whether your ERP system is new, or you have new employees who need to learn how to use it, or it’s been awhile since your current employees have learned the system, sufficient and relevant training is critical to using your ERP system to its fullest advantage.