Last week, MSNBC featured a story with this headline: “Lack of computer skills foils many job-seekers.” The article highlighted how many of those included in the recent record-high unemployment stats don’t have adequate enough skills to file for their unemployment benefits online, let alone compete in a fierce market for jobs.

Even those with jobs have problems with tasks they are expected to perform daily.

But it’s not just the jobless who are struggling with rudimentary computer skills. Even those with jobs have problems with tasks they are expected to perform daily.

For example, if an employee cannot get the page numbering to work in the departmental report he is working on, where will he go for help? He probably will not call the IT help desk; that’s just for when computers are on fire or when networks are down (that, he’s learned from experience). Or, he might browse Microsoft’s notoriously useless help feature.

Another option is to wheel his chair in the aisle and ask a colleague in the next cubicle, because maybe he remembers him working on a report in Word at one point or another. Now two employees are trying to figure out the page-numbering riddle, and they are getting no further. That’s twice the wasted time and money.

Quality desktop application support usually is the first to go when budgets are cut. After all, it’s hard to quantify its return on investment, and the demand for such support is often hidden. But the skills you give your employees benefit you, the company, most of all.

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admin Computer Literacy Help Desk, hidden demand, MSNBC, software support