Some Excel Uses that Every HR can Benefit from

What Excel can do...

I hope most of us in this class have utilized Excel for something that is more creative than tracking our grocery shopping list and making a "to-do" list!

Microsoft Excel is a spreadsheet program that is designed to capture and analyze data such as texts and numbers. However Excel is not just restricted for data entry, creative utilization of Excel can help data collection, finance and accounting budgeting, expense tracking and statistics data analysis, to just name a few.

What Excel can do for HR functions...

Excel is such a powerful tool that it can also be utilized in the HR field. In fact, some Excel functions when utilized properly can make the life of a HR professional quite easy! As Excel can help data maintenance and analysis, it can be used to collect and store HR data such as employment history, starting date, employee identification, termination date, duration of service, tracking of sick days and compensation record.

Your survey responses...

Based on your responses collected by the survey sent out to you at the beginning of the week, some of you feel quite proficient and comfortable using Excel. Here is a pie chart based on your responses=)

Bart's trivia

Before Excel 2007, how many columns does Excel have per spreadsheet?

That's right: before Excel 2007, it only has 256 columns per spreadsheet. It has increased to 16384 columns per spreadsheet since then!

Basic navigation...

Number	Contains	Description
1	Title Bar	Contains the name of the file that is currently open.
2	Menu Bar	Contains various commands that can be performed by Excel.
3	Tool Bar	Contains buttons for some commonly commanded tasks.
4	Formula Bar	Displays the content of an active cell. The left hand side of the bar is the ``address`` of the active cell.
5	Column Label	Contains the heading of the columns.
6	Row Label	Contains the heading of the rows.
7	Sheet Area	Enters and stores the actual data (i.e. text, date and numbers).
8	Sheet Tab	Gives identities to sheet which is currently active.
9	Status Bar	Gives a status update of the entire currently active sheet.

Some Excel functions that may be useful for HR...

CONCATENATE FUNCTION

VLOOKUP FUNCTION

PIVOT TABLE FUNCTION

Now...please complete the mini-Excel exercise which can be downloaded from https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AgF5dutUUDWzdHQ3amJWbzdsRUxiVGRlRW1WWXd2enc and email it back to me at  200202714@student.georgianc.on.ca  OR if you have any questions, feel free to reach me at this email too.
You can also find the training template here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AgF5dutUUDWzdFl6QVFpdzFlREpnaUdZYjRPczBYZWc

Thank you so much for reading this blog and if you have a few minutes to spare, please fill out the survey http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/BXCJG7L to let me know how I did=) Thanks again everyone!!