The value of constant upgrading of skills for you and your staff.
“Even while a small business owner has the skills they need to get set up and – if they’re smart – will try to employ others who have several skills to join the team, learning should be the foundation of a business’s culture.”
Andrew Maren
This is the advice of Andrew Maren, co-founder and CEO of ProfitShare Partners, the successful Fintech firm that opens the door to cash for SMEs that need it and meet certain criteria.
“In our years of helping SMEs get access to finance when they need it, we’ve noted that those who have set themselves a path that includes upgrading their skills regularly are those who truly understand the value of knowledge.”
Andrew Maren
These days, Maren points out, learning is available at the click of a mouse, often for little to no cost. “The company owner who wants the best for themselves and their staff encourage employees to make time for learning innovative ways to think and do things. We took a look at some of the low-to-no cost e-learning offerings that may be of use to your company.”
These include:
Management courses
“These free online management courses will teach you about the very best in business management techniques. Becoming a good manager requires learning a wide range of complex professional and interpersonal skills, as well as cultivating a solid understanding of your business and employees. These courses are designed to help you become the best manager you can be.”
Website: Alison.com
Link: https://alison.com/tag/management
Courses include:
- Human Resources
- Supervision
- Risk Management
- Conflict Management
- Bullying
- Warehouse Management
And much more.
The Open University
Money & Business – The world of work, the world of business and the pounds (money) in your pocket.
Website: www.open.edu
Link: https://www.open.edu/openlearn/money-management/free-courses
- Accounting & Finance
- Business Strategy & Studies
- Economics
- Entrepreneurship
- Human Resources
- Leadership & Management
- Marketing
- People & Organisation Matters
- Personal Finance
Interesting courses on offer comprise Hybrid working: Skills for leadership; The Business of Football; Developing Career Resilience; Using data to aid Organisational Change; and more.
Coursera – Learn without limits
Start, switch, or advance your career with more than 5,200 courses, Professional Certificates, and degrees from world-class universities and companies.
Website: Coursera
Link: https://www.coursera.org/courses?query=free
On offer at this site – which collaborates with 275+ leading universities and companies from around the world, often with no prior experience necessary to get started – is e-learning that is free and/or pay to get your diploma or degree in the following areas:
- IBM Data Science
- Meta Database Engineer
- Google Data Analytics
- Intuit Bookkeeping
- Machine Learning
- Thrive in Trying Times
- AI for everyone
- Teaching English Online
- Learning, Knowledge and Human Development (from a psychological standpoint)
With so much information available online, there’s much to pick up when you need to improve your understanding of a certain area of business.
“Always note the terms and conditions before you sign up,” Maren warns. “You don’t want to be landed with a payment in Euros or US dollars out of the blue. But just some time on Google, searching through trustworthy corporations such as Forbes.com will advance your knowledge positively.
“As the late Steve Jobs, founder of the massively successful Apple corporation, noted: ‘It doesn’t make sense to hire smart people and then tell them what to do. We hire smart people so they can tell us what to do.’ Anyone with the heart and mind of an entrepreneur will understand the value of hiring those smart people, as well as being one of those smart people.
“No day spent learning your own job or something new and innovative is wasted. Be that person who reaches for more. And then be that boss whose cultural foundation is knowledge.”
