How to Train Your Team to Search Smarter, Not Harder and Get Results Fast
If your team spends more time looking for files than using them, something needs to change. On average, working-age adults spend more than 6 and a half hours per day on the Internet. If they are not searching for information in an effective manner, then a significant chunk of that time is wasted. However, there are important steps that anyone can take to help their team search smarter and find the information that they require. We will show you how to make it happen.
Why Smarter Search Matters
Imagine this scenario:
A team member is trying to find key information that is relevant to a project that they are actively working on. The only problem is that the basic searching that they have been doing isn’t turning up the type of results that they need. They quickly become frustrated and simply recreate information that already exists within the company’s files.
If this type of scenario is playing out within your organization, then you are losing precious time and resources to ineffective searching. In fact, a few of the hidden costs of basic searches include:
- Wasted Time - We are all given the same 24 hours in a day, and there is no use spending any portion of that time on basic and ineffective searches that don’t produce results.
- Lost Productivity - Employees are hired to create outstanding work for their employers. When they are conducting basic searches and not finding the relevant information that those employers need, then they are losing productive hours that could have been better spent.
- Missed Opportunities - When employees know how to search smarter, they can find the timeliest information. However, when they use only basic search tactics, they could be missing opportunities to create the most relevant and up-to-date projects possible.
These are things to keep in mind as you think about why you need to train your team on how to search smarter.
Build the Foundations of Smarter Search
Learning how to search through databases effectively is something that can be taught. To do so, employers should start with the most basic concepts and branch out from there. Once an employee has had the opportunity to learn those basic concepts, they can apply them to every search that they ever conduct and get better results.
Start by teaching employees how to use some of the basic filters such as:
These search strategies will instantly bring in more reliable and useful results.
Also, encourage all employees to be thoughtful about how they name and tag files in the first place. This will help others who search for those files after they have been entered into the system. If they are properly labeled and tagged, they will be a lot easier to find than if they were entered into the system in a scattershot type of way.
Finally, don’t forget to teach employees to get in the routine of certain time-saving habits such as bookmarking important files that they return to often. This can save precious minutes every time they need to access that specific file.
Leverage the Right Tools
Having the right tools at your disposal is the difference between finding the files that you require in a timely manner and never being capable of tracking down the files that you need.
Many companies rely on the basic and default search tools that nearly everyone has access to. Think of tools such as Google Drive and similar options for Windows PC. You can search across those tools, but the searches performed are often severely lacking and not all that helpful at getting to the information you truly want to access.
Instead of relying on basic and outdated search tools like those, why not try the suite of powerful features offered by Copernic? This is a more powerful and more user-friendly search tool than anything that comes pre-installed on your devices.
Among the features that people love about Copernic are the following:
- Cross-Platform Capabilities – Rapidly search for any file or specific piece of information that you need, whenever you need it, no matter which platform it is located on. Copernic will scour over 170+ file types that you need it to locate those files.
- Customizable Search Filters - You can create your own search filters that make sense for the types of searches that you specifically need. Set up the filters to only locate files with certain attributes that you are specifically looking for. Then, you can sort through the results that come back to you in a timelier manner.
- Instant Indexing - Retrieve the information that you want to see with instant indexing. Copernic can do all of that for you and offer you the specific results that you are looking for in a flash.
These are just some of the features of the Copernic system that make it a preferred choice for many people and businesses.
Create a Culture of Continuous Search Improvement
Don’t shy away from making it a competition to see who can improve their search results the most over a time. If you really want to make a contest out of it, you can even appoint “search champions” as leaders in the continuous improvement project. These are people who have figured out some of the best ways to reduce their search times and stand out as an example for other employees.
It can get a little competitive, and that is the whole point. You want your entire team to be pulling in the same direction, and sometimes the best way to do that is to stoke the competitive spirit that so many of us have. If you want to see compounding positive results in terms of saving time on search, then this is one of the best ways to do that.
Track Results and Celebrate Wins
Retain data about how much improvement smart searching has brought to your team. Keep information about how long it takes to recover certain critical pieces of information and how much of that time has been cut out thanks to smart searching.
As the metrics and data begin to trend in your direction, remember to celebrate the wins. Even if those wins are small in the beginning, you should still note them and provide encouragement to your team to keep striving. A little boost here and there might be all that your team needs to continue to put in the effort necessary to search smarter.
Give Copernic Desktop & Cloud Search a try for free today. See for yourself how Copernic can significantly reduce the amount of time wasted on unnecessary searches.