A software-skills PD (professional development) day works when three decisions are made before anything is booked: how long the day is, what staff should be able to do by the end of it, and how a room of mixed skill levels gets split so nobody is bored or lost. Settle those three and the rest is logistics. This guide takes them in order, then covers the week-before checklist and how a session price behaves as the room fills.
Somebody has approved a professional development day and a budget, and the staff survey came back saying people want help with Excel. "Help with Excel" describes six different problems held by people at four different skill levels, and they cannot all be taught the same thing on the same morning.
Decide the length first: half day, full day, or two half-days
A half day is roughly three hours. It fits one tool at one level, taught as a working introduction, and staff are back at their desks after lunch. It is a real session, but tell the room what it is: an introduction, not a complete program.
A full day is six hours. It fits one tool taught properly, or two tools split by level. The extra three hours are not more content. They are practice time, where people do the thing themselves rather than watch it done, and practice is what decides whether any of it survives the week.
Two half-days across a week is the underrated option. It suits a team that cannot empty the office at once, and it has a learning advantage: people go back to their desks between sessions, try what they learned, and arrive at the second half with real questions instead of polite silence.
| Format | Time in the room | What fits | Choose it when |
|---|---|---|---|
| Half day | About three hours | One tool, one level, as a working introduction | A morning is the only block anyone will approve |
| Full day | Six hours | One tool taught properly, or two tools split by level | You want practice time built in and one date on the calendar |
| Two half-days, a week apart | Two blocks of about three hours | The full-day content with a week of desk practice in the middle | The office cannot empty at once, or you want the second session built on real questions |
Write the one sentence
After this day, our staff will be able to ___.
If the sentence cannot be finished with something specific, the day will not be specific either. "Be better at Excel" produces a tour of features. "Produce the monthly departmental report without rebuilding it by hand" produces a day where we open the monthly report and build it together.
That sentence separates the PD days people remember from the ones people sit through, and it is the quickest part of the whole plan to write.
Split the mixed-level room
Assume the room is mixed, because a staff survey cannot tell you otherwise. There is the person who has been building PivotTables for years, the person who reaches for the mouse on every cell because nobody ever showed them the Tab key, and several people in between who would never say which group they belong to.
Teaching all of them together means the confident ones are bored by ten and the nervous ones are lost by eleven. Split the day instead. Run it like a small conference with two tracks rather than one long session, with people attending the part that fits them.
| Block | Office-first shape | Excel-first shape |
|---|---|---|
| Morning | Word and Outlook fundamentals for everyone whose day is documents and email: Styles and sections, a table of contents that updates itself, an inbox triage routine, a calendar that protects focus | Beginner Excel while people are fresh: entering data cleanly, formulas that copy without breaking, a sheet that prints on one page |
| Afternoon | Intermediate Excel for the group whose work needs it: lookups, Tables, PivotTables, a report that rebuilds itself | Intermediate Excel for the group that already has the basics |
The Office-first shape is the one to reach for when the widest range of skill levels has to sit together, because the Word and Outlook fundamentals are new to beginners and still useful to the confident ones. Reverse it when the nervous group is the Excel group. Either way the principle holds: two rooms' worth of content in one day.
Sort the room without embarrassing anyone
Do not ask staff to self-report their skill level. People underestimate or overestimate, and in front of a manager, both feel like a judgement on the record.
Ask what they do instead. Three questions in an email, a week ahead:
- What do you use this tool for in a normal week?
- What takes longer than you think it should?
- What do you currently ask someone else to do for you?
The third question is the useful one. The answers sort the room accurately, they are not embarrassing to write down, and they give me the real examples to build the session around. If four people say they ask the same colleague to fix the same thing, that is the day's agenda, already written.
If four people say they ask the same colleague to fix the same thing, that is the day's agenda, already written.
How the money works
Pricing is published on every course page, and it is a session price rather than a per-seat fee. The Office foundation days, Word, Outlook, and PowerPoint, are listed at $750 to $1,495 CAD plus HST. The Excel levels are listed at $1,495 to $2,990 CAD plus HST. Where a quote lands inside the range depends on group size and scope, and you get the number in writing before anything is booked. There are no setup fees, no materials fees, and no venue cost, because the venue is your office. If you want the half-day or the two-half-days format, say so when you ask, and the quote comes back priced for that shape.
The practical consequence for a PD day: because the price is per session rather than per person, the cost per head falls as the room fills. Six people in the room and twelve people in the room are close to the same invoice. If two departments each have four staff who need the same session, running it once for eight is better value than running it twice, and the invoice can be split across both cost centres.
That has a ceiling, for a teaching reason. Hands-on software training stops working well past about a dozen people, because past that point I can no longer get to everybody who is stuck. If your group is larger, two sessions is the honest answer rather than one crowded one.
The week-before checklist
A session at your own office removes the travel, the venue, and the registrations, so the list is short. Everything on it is checked the week before, not the morning of.
- Every participant has a computer with the software installed, licensed, and opening. A licence that lapsed costs the whole room its first stretch of the morning.
- A room where everybody can see one screen. A boardroom with a TV is fine. A projector is fine.
- Two or three real files sent ahead: the documents or workbooks your team works in. The session is built on those rather than on sample data.
- The one sentence written down and agreed with whoever approved the budget.
- The three questions sent, answered, and used to sort names into tracks.
- The written quote in hand, naming the format, the date, and the group size.
- Calendars blocked and standing meetings moved, for everyone attending, for the whole block.
Protect the day. The way a PD day loses value is people being pulled out for meetings, one at a time, until the afternoon is teaching four of the eight people who started it. If the morning is booked, book it.
What staff can do the next morning
The test of the day is the next morning, at their own desks, with the file they were avoiding. The Word group opens the long report and fixes the numbering with Styles instead of by hand. The Outlook group runs the triage routine on the inbox that piled up during training. The Excel group opens the monthly report and rebuilds the total with a formula that survives a column insert, then prints it on one page. That is the one sentence, delivered.
Where to start
- Onsite training or a webinar: which fits your team: if someone is still asking whether the day could be a webinar, start with the comparison.
- Excel training for your whole team: how to pick the Excel level, and when a broken workbook is the real problem.
- Office training for a municipality or public agency: the written quote, insurance, and invoicing, if you are buying for a public organization.
- Browse the training topics: what is covered at each level, with the price on every page.
Send me the date you are holding, roughly how many staff, and your one sentence about what they should be able to do afterward. You will get back a proposed shape for the day and a written quote.
