This is the second of a 7-part series where we talk about different kinds of job aids that your Support Reps need you to make for them.

This is the first of a 7-part series where we talk about different kinds of job aids that your Support Reps need you to make for them.

When a manager sits down to "train" a new employee, the main focus is almost always on how to use the system. But that approach leaves everybody frustrated. The employee doesn't actually know the context of when she should be doing those actions, NOR can she remember everything the manager showed her. And the manager is frustrated because he notices that the employee seems to constantly interrupt him with questions. It's a lose-lose-lose (the system loses in this case, too) situation. Instead of only focusing on showing employees how a system works, I recommend focusing on all 3 of these elements:

If you are planning a training session, I want you to pull out a piece of paper and a pen, and do 2 things.

Sometimes, hyperlinks are scary. You ask yourself, "Do I really want to leave the page I'm on?" This is especially true when reading documentation, policies, procedures, and job aids. If you see a link (like this link here) in a knowledge base article, you don't want to click on it because you don't want to leave the help article you're on. After all, if you leave, there's a chance you'll never find your way back.

For learning to occur, two requirements must be met: 1) you must have a teacher who is ready to teach, and 2) you must have a learner who is ready to learn.

In 1935, Boeing's model 299 crashed into the ground during a test flight, killing two crew members. The plane was newly designed to push the limits of flight—aluminum-alloy shell, four engines, a 103-foot wingspan, and it could carry 5x more bombs than what the military had initially requested. But none of that mattered because apparently, the plane couldn't fly.

We wanted to give you a preview of what is coming in the new ScreenSteps Employee Training Platform. Look for future blog post that will detail all of the features. But here are a few bits. Checklists Job aids are great for when an employee is still learning where to click and what to do. But after awhile, employees may not need to reference the screenshots very often because they remember all (or at least most) of the clicks for performing a task. Yet mistakes are still being made in the day-to-day operations. Billing information is incomplete, Opportunties are inaccurate, and Quotes are being sent out prematurely. Even though employees basically know how to do their job, sometimes they forget all that needs to be done. And that's where checklists come in.

Are some of your ScreenSteps articles kind of lengthy?

Don’t you hate it when you finish up a project, release it to the world, and then get an email from your team with something like, “Hey! How come you didn’t address any of my notes and feedback?”