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.

Are you getting ready to rollout a new CRM system, or to onboard some new employees? Here are four rules that will help you use ScreenSteps to improve the success of your training.

ScreenSteps isn’t just a traditional knowledge base - it’s a tool for giving your employees all the information they need to do their job in the context of where they are working. Here are three examples of how we have been using ScreenSteps:

Why do we assume that we need to learn everything? Our brains can only hold and apply so much information. Do we really want to limit our performance and the performance of our employees to what information we can remember and actually apply? Not if we want our team to reach its full potential. But what if L&D changed its strategy from trying to teach more information to trying to help employees be successful when they forget?

I teach. A lot. I teach people that are very interested in what I have to say. And I teach people that don't care at all. I teach people who are highly motivated to apply the information that I present. And I teach people who like what they hear but can't find the time to get around it actually applying it. I teach big groups and individuals. I give lectures and I lead discussions. And I have to do it multiple times each week. Here are just a few principles that I have learned over time. 1. You cannot teach someone who is not 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?

I have what we like to call our $40,000 fridge problem. Whoever designed our kitchen (long before we purchased our current house) put the oven so close to the wall that you can only fit a small fridge next to it. The oven is situated such that in order to get a larger fridge we would have to redo the entire kitchen.