3 Secrets to Creating Effective Job Aids

If you’re a trainer, you want to make sure your learners have access to the right content at the right time. This is why you need effective job aids.

Since Mimeo works with many trainers across a variety of industries, we’ve seen a lot over the years. We recently shared our expertise with the International Association for Continuing Education and Training (IACET) community on how to make your job aids more effective.

Here are our 3 secrets to crafting effective job aids.

3 Secrets to Creating Effective Job Aids

Keep It Relevant

It may go without saying, but keeping your content relevant to your learners is a key ingredient. By presenting relevant information to your learners at the right time, you will keep them engaged.

For example, if you’re training a coffee barista, then put a job aid next to the mocha machine so it can be easily referenced. This serves as a perfect complement to the learning process and ensures the learner’s success with a common on-the-job task.

To begin creating your job aids, start by doing an audience and task analysis, with questions including:

• What are the demographics?
• How much prior knowledge do they have on the subject?
• What are the average education levels?
• What task is this supporting?
• How much of a priority is this task?
• How difficult is this task?

When you are providing learners with job aids, be sure the included information is supplying them with the right content, in the right format, at the right time.

Make It Pretty

The next secret to making effective job aids is to use basic graphic design principles to make sure you’re making the most of the space you have. You don’t have to be a professional to adopt a few simple principles that make your job aids more effective.

Here are 5 design principles to get your started:

• Scale
• Color palette
• Contrast
• Font
• Spacing

For non-designers who want to create dazzling designs, look to design tools such as Canva, Powtoon and PowerPoint for easy-to-use applications. Using these tools, you can transform your training materials and enhance your learner’s experience.

Presentation Matters

Lastly, you should consider how your materials are going to be presented. Start by completing an environmental analysis to determine where your job aids will be used and where you are going to be training learners on specific tasks.

Go a step further by providing answers to these questions as well:

• How long after the training is the employee going to be performing the task?
• What kind of technology will the employee have access to?
• How much time will the employee have to execute on the task?

From here, you can determine how durable the job aid needs to be, how large it should be, and how your learners will be handling it.

Following these secrets, you can create more effective job aids for your learners. Not only will these secrets improve your training, but they will help your learners complete their on-the-job tasks effectively.

Want $100 off your job aids? See how Mimeo produces high-quality materials for your training using checkout code: IACET100