The emergency shift to remote work in 2020 was hectic for many businesses. With no time to thoughtfully develop new processes and norms, many companies relied on new apps and tools to stay connected as a distributed workforce.

According to a survey from Okta, companies deployed 89 apps on average in 2021, up from 58 in 2015. And employees are feeling the consequences, with app overload leading to less productivity and even burnout.

Even with workers having dozens of apps at their fingertips each day, when we asked Snagit customers what their “desert island” workplace tools are, a few apps rose to the top across various industries and roles. 

In this post, you’ll learn:

• The true cost of tech fatigue in your organization
• Simple ways to prevent app overload
• What tools and apps employees can’t go without

The cost of using too many apps for communication and collaboration at work

While there are obvious financial costs associated with workplace technology, not finding the right balance of tools can impact your organization beyond budgets.

Misunderstandings or confusion

Too many apps can cause misunderstandings or create confusion within your company, primarily when employees use multiple tools that serve similar functions. 

When information becomes scattered across multiple apps, it’s easier for people to receive conflicting information or even miss an important message altogether. 

It can be even more complicated when teams or departments within a company use different apps to share information. 

Let’s say you’re working on a design project, and a stakeholder shares a critical change to the specifications in a Teams chat. However, the designer on your team is checking their email for updates and misses the message in Teams. 

The next time the team regroups, the designer is confused about why the stakeholder isn’t happy with their work and frustrated they didn’t have the correct information. 

Reduced productivity and wasted time

Do you have days where you work on many different tasks but don’t actually complete anything on your to-do list?

You can blame context switching, or the tendency to shift between one task to an unrelated task, for that lack of productivity. 

When we’re using too many apps at work, we can find ourselves spending more time toggling between windows than actually getting our work done.

According to a Ring Central survey, employees waste about an hour each day switching between different apps. 

Plus, each of those apps comes with its own set of notifications that make it more challenging to focus on a single task. 

Employee disengagement and burnout

According to The Anatomy of Work Index, more than one-third of workers feel overwhelmed by the persistent ping of notifications.

When you also consider how app overload unintentionally creates a fragmented, confusing work environment, it’s easy to see how employees could become stressed.

According to a survey from FlexJobs, more than three-quarters of respondents say workplace stress affects their mental health, which can lead to disengagement or burnout. 

How to combat app overload

The good news is there are several ways to help prevent app overload and its consequences.

Audit the tools you have

Start by taking stock of the apps you’re using and the specific business outcomes they support. Evaluating your company’s current tools will help identify redundancies or gaps in workflows to address.

Don’t forget to keep your organization’s most critical goals in mind when deciding which apps are essential and which you should let go of. 

If your company handles complex projects with many moving parts, it probably doesn’t make sense to get rid of your project management app.

Use the tools you have to the fullest

A study from WalkMe found that only half of the enterprises surveyed believe they realize the full potential of the apps at their disposal. 

Before deploying a new app, evaluate whether one of the tools you already have meets that need first. 

Look into features you’re not currently using or other pricing tiers to see if upgrading a current app is a better fit. You might find investing in an app your employees already use more cost-effective in the long run.

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Streamline processes

We usually don’t add tools or apps to our workplace tech stack just for fun. The goal is to give employees the tools they need to do their job effectively.

So, creating uniform processes across teams and departments can also help reduce app overload and prevent redundant work or information silos. 

Let’s say the human resources team at your company uses Asana to keep track of their work, but the finance team uses Trello for the same purpose. Of course, there are added costs associated with the redundancy, but it can also make workflows unnecessarily complicated.

Especially when those teams need to collaborate on a project, it can lead to conflicting information or additional steps to get everyone on the same page.

Listen to your employees

When adding or removing tools from your workplace tech stack, remember to collect feedback from those who use them every day.

Asking employees for their opinions about the functionality or usefulness of an app can help you get a better idea of its overall effectiveness. 

You may discover that the features one team likes about OneDrive are the same reasons another team can’t live without Google Docs, allowing a smoother transition if you choose one app over the other. 

The top workplace tools, according to employees

To find out what tools professionals across various industries are finding success with today, we asked Snagit customers one question, “If you had to choose five software tools to continue to use in the workplace today, which would you choose?”*

Across industries and roles, the top five tools were:

1. Snagit
2. Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, PowerPoint)
3. Outlook
4. Zoom
5. Microsoft Teams

Snagit is a powerful screen capture tool that allows you to use images and videos to share ideas, give feedback, and communicate more effectively. 

It’s incredibly easy to use and ranks on G2’s list of Best Software Products for 2023.

Snagit is one of those applications that you need to have “always on” ready to go. It is such a productive tool for learning, presentation development, and idea generation.

Derek T. via G2

Building the optimal tech stack for hybrid and remote work requires thoughtful evaluation of the tools your teams use daily. Leveraging a quality-over-quantity approach to apps can help you communicate more effectively, increase productivity, and keep employees engaged.

Have you ever been asked to train a colleague or even just teach them something new?

Whether there’s a new hire at your organization or a coworker who is unfamiliar with a particular task, you’ve likely needed to share your knowledge at some point.

If you’re a process owner, creating and maintaining process documentation is helpful for a variety of reasons.

Not only can documenting a process save time, but it also helps ensure that tasks get done correctly by outlining a consistent set of directions. It can also help prevent bottlenecks in day-to-day operations by spreading knowledge throughout a team instead of funneling all tasks through one person.  

In this post, we’ll cover the basics of process documentation, provide some best practices, and share a step-by-step guide that will help you document a process in just a few clicks!

Here’s what you’ll learn:

• What is process documentation?
• Why is process documentation so important for businesses?
• How to create a process easily
• Additional tips to create a process

What is process documentation?

Process documentation is the ongoing, internal, real-time act of ensuring all steps within any given process are written down and made available for others to reference. 

Process documents are the outcome of process documentation and serve to keep tasks flowing as smoothly as possible by providing clear and accurate instructions on how a process should be completed. 

Businesses need to have documentation like this in order to maximize effectiveness and efficiency in their day-to-day operations. 

Process documents can come in many forms, including process maps, checklists, policies, tutorials, screenshots, and forms. Process documentation frequently included links as well, sometimes to another program necessary for the process to be completed and sometimes to an excellent reference video or other such resources.  

Why is process documentation so important for businesses?

Eliminate errors

Process documentation is an excellent way to reduce errors in the ongoing tasks completed within a business. 

Without process documentation, it can be quite easy to miss a step within a process. 

Sometimes this won’t have a significant impact but at other times it could completely change the outcome. Having process documents available helps ensure that a process will happen exactly the same way every time, regardless of who is completing the process and how great their memory is. 

Having process documents available and in use also helps to negate the all too common errors caused by miscommunication or altogether lack of communication. 

Not all managers will communicate the purpose of or steps in a process the same way, and process documentation is an effective workaround for this. 

Regardless of who is assigning a task and how well they explain it, having access to a process document means that the person carrying out the task has a reference for how exactly to make it happen. 

Improve efficiency

Unnecessary meetings, duplicated work, and revisions are all inefficiencies that can be reduced by documenting processes. 

With all of the details documented, there is no need for a meeting (or meetings!) to review what needs to happen during a process.  

Duplicate work is reduced because, if everyone is following a well-crafted suite of documentation, redundancies should have been eliminated and revisions become less frequent as a result of clearly laid out steps and a well-articulated outcome.  

Also read: Quick reference guide

Lower costs

Almost any time we see improvements to efficiency we can find cost reduction as well. 

Less time spent in meetings and fewer iterations of a task reduces the human cost of the process while laying out exactly what resources should be in use for each step allows a business to see whether there are systems, platforms, or programs that have become redundant and can be eliminated, thereby reducing the costs associated with them.

Decrease resources associated with tasks

As mentioned above, process documentation allows for evaluation and potential reduction of the resources a business makes available. 

When the process documents clearly assign specific resources to particular points in the process the common traps of trial and error and “I wasn’t sure what to use” are removed from the equation and only what is meant to be used is used. 

Improve work quality

With nothing left up to assumption, guessing, or personal preference, process documentation can take the quality level up a notch or two for your deliverables. 

By following a well-documented process, your team will achieve a level of consistency that speaks to quality and know-how. 

And the very nature of product documentation is that of an evolving creation, so whenever efficiencies or improvements are found they can easily be integrated and operationalized. 

Increase customer satisfaction

Whether the process documents in question outline the development of a particular deliverable or the established manner in which customer service is provided, using them well will help boost customer satisfaction.  

People like quality and they like to know what to expect. Product documents help your team deliver the consistent quality service that your customers desire and deserve.

Increase employee satisfaction

No one likes to fumble their way through a process. This is especially true of employees who care about their work and strive for great results – not to mention the fact that they will typically receive feedback on their efficiency and effectiveness and likely prefer that feedback to be positive. 

By providing high-quality process documentation, you can remove any uncertainty about how a task should be executed. 

This helps give employees confidence and lets them know you are setting them up for success. That is an excellent combination for increasing employee satisfaction.

Create process documentation easily 

With all the benefits you’ve just learned, you may be wondering, “but how exactly do I document a process?” If that’s you, keep reading – we have broken it down into easy steps so you can create effective process documentation with no trouble. 

Step 1: Create a brief description of the process

The best process documents include a brief thorough description of the broader sense of the process. 

When done well, this can help the end user really understand the scope and impact of the work they are about to do, and where it falls against other tasks they hold responsibility for from the perspective of priority.  

Your description should include details like the goals and timeline for process completion, as well as a method of determining priority level. 

These components will let the user know how the process completion will impact and dovetail with their other work. It is also important to share the relevant Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for the process, as well as what other stakeholders might be involved with the process completion. 

Step 2: Define specific boundaries for the process

Once you have the description complete, the next step is to lay down the boundaries. This will let your process documentation provide clear instructions as to which teams and individuals hold responsibility for and/or are tasked with completing specific pieces of the process. 

It’s not uncommon for multiple departments to hold a piece of the process, so the documentation clearly explaining who makes what decisions and who performs which tasks can save an incredible amount of time on back-and-forth clarifying conversations. 

Step 3: Determine inputs and outputs

Next, you will need to determine and document what resources will be required to complete the process (inputs) and what the objectives are that you want to see achieved on process completion (outputs). 

When determining outputs, make sure to revisit the goals you documented in your process document’s description to make sure your outputs will see those goals achieved. 

You will use these inputs and outputs to help break everything down into smaller steps in the next stage of creating your process documentation. 

Step 4: Decide process steps

This step in creating your process documentation is one where you may find it beneficial to bring in some other individuals for a brainstorming session to make sure that you think of all the details.

Whether working with a group or solo, you’ll want to start by defining the start and end points of the process. With those identified, you can start filling in the steps required to get from point a to point b.  

Try to be as thorough as you can here, to avoid any confusion or the need for employees to guess how to bridge the gap between one step and the next. Be mindful of multiplying steps, for example, if one of the steps is a meeting, you will need to add steps to reflect booking the meeting, drafting an agenda, and sending the minutes or a follow-up email to the attendees. 

It can also be quite impactful to incorporate screenshots or screen recordings (if your process documentation will be exclusively digital) at various points as you document the steps in a process. 
These additions can add an exceptional amount of clarity to your documentation and help the team feel confident that they are on the right track. Get your free trial of Snagit to make this part quick and easy!

Step 5: Communicate with your team

When you are creating a new piece of process documentation, once you have the description, boundaries, and steps laid out it is a good idea to bring in some perspectives outside of your own. 

Gather individuals from the teams or departments that will be involved in completing the process you are documenting to make sure what you have created is clear to them. 

Are there any steps missing?  Inefficiently allocated resources?  Multiple perspectives can be quite beneficial in uncovering these and ensuring your process documentation is clear and easy to follow. 

Step 6: Prepare a process flowchart

Our research has shown us quite clearly that adding visuals to your communication is a great way to ensure its effectiveness and retention. 

Some of your staff and colleagues may also just be visual learners, so adding a highly visual process flow document or flowchart to your process documentation is a step worth taking.  

To do this, simply pull your inputs, tasks, and outputs from the process document and organize them into a flowchart. It is a good idea to pass this visual representation of the workflow by your team or direct reports to make sure it is as clear to them as it is to you.

Step 7: Take note of process exceptions

Like anything else, a process won’t look the same every time it gets completed.  Some steps may only be necessary for certain situations, and irrelevant in others.  

For example, your project documentation might indicate meetings at 3 points throughout the process, but with less complex versions of the desired outcome you may only actually need 2 meetings.  

These exceptions should be clearly noted in your process documents so that there is no question or misperception about when exemptions apply and when the process must be completed exactly as documented. 

Step 8: Test your process

Now that you have spent the time and energy to create thorough and accurate process documents, you need to take them for a spin. 

Things tend to work much differently in practice than they do in theory, so you will need to allow space for your team to test out the documentation and provide feedback. This is an iterative process, after all, and your outcomes can only be as good as the processes in place to reach them.  Your process documents should be tested and refined as many times as needed to achieve optimal results.  

Extra tips for effective process documentation

Make it visual

Research shows that 67% of people understand information better when it’s communicated visually.

Including screenshots in your documentation is one of the fastest, most effective ways to show colleagues how to do something. Our favorite tool to use for process documentation is Snagit.

Snagit allows you to easily capture screenshots and add text callouts, numbered steps, and other customizable annotations to draw attention to a particular area to convey information. 

Keep it simple

Be mindful of your audience’s cognitive load – eliminate unnecessary distractions from your content so that your audience can focus on what is important. There are several ways to do this, but in general, your guiding principle should be to boil down the communication to the essentials.

Aim for evergreen 

As you plan and work through documenting a process, try to avoid examples and text which will quickly become outdated. 

For example, try not to use version numbers in software, dates, or references that could quickly become irrelevant. Being mindful of your approach can help you keep your content up-to-date longer. 

Simplified User Interface graphics are great for this application as well. They allow you to avoid frequent updates to your content, such as cases when buttons move around in software applications.

Don’t forget about routine maintenance

While we want our content to be evergreen, even the best content will eventually require updates. 

When this happens, try to edit your existing screenshots instead of a total re-do. Snagit’s library keeps a handy record of past screenshots, which means you can open and edit them as necessary. 

Don’t have your original files? No problem! Just take a screenshot of your screenshot! Snagit has some great options for editing screenshots, such as Smart Move and Replace Text, that will save valuable time. 

Schedule regular check-ins, even if they are only once a year. This will ensure that your content stays up-to-date and has all the necessary steps, even as systems and other variables change. Be sure to get feedback from relevant people in your organization. Others may have valuable insights to share.

Could a job aid be the learning solution that helps your business? 

Empowering your employees with the information they need to level-up is an integral part of managing staff and running a successful business. When you identify problem areas or gaps in knowledge, it only takes a quick Google search to discover the variety of options available to educate your employees.

Online courses and eLearning are popular ways of training. But are they the most suitable for teaching the information you need your employees to know?

Training courses and eLearning solutions aren’t always the silver bullet. These are often costly, time-consuming answers to a problem, and depending on what your employees need to know, it could be a waste of time and money.

Before you invest in any learning solution, consider what your employees need to know. Could it be taught with some illustrative material? Do users need frequent access to easy-to-read materials rather than something they need to commit to memory?

If the answer to any of these is yes, what you might need is a job aid.

Job aids can be instrumental in helping people learn how to complete tasks. In this post, we will share our advice for creating job aids that will work best for your business. 

You can watch the video on this topic at the top of this post, to listen to the podcast episode, hit play below, or read on for more…

What are job aids, exactly? 

A job aid, otherwise known as a “cheat sheet”, is any material that helps you complete a task.

Job aids are essential tools to empower people with useable information to perform tasks independently. They don’t have to be formal or created on any special software. They just have to help the user through a process successfully and in the simplest way possible.

You’re probably already using job aids and don’t even know it. 

A job aid can come in the form of a virtual sticky note on your computer screen, reminding you what your computer login password is. It could be the paper assembly instructions detailing how to build that new desk for your home office. It could be a checklist, an infographic, an app, a print-out, a note scribbled onto a piece of paper – all these have the potential to function as an effective job aid.

Job aids are used over and over again and provide value to a returning user. Designed to be deliberately easy to understand and quick to use. Most importantly, job aids should be convenient to access when needed.

Common examples of job aids include:

• One-pagers
• Cheat sheets
• Paper handouts
• Instructional lists
• Printouts
• Performance support collateral
• Checklists
• Infographics
• Videos
• User manuals

What job aids are NOT

The key word here is “aid”. As in, assist or support. A job aid serves to assist or support staff in completing their assigned tasks by providing a quick reminder of how to do them. Anything that teaches someone how to do something new is a training tool not a job aid.   

A job aid is not a training solution, but rather a reminder of something the employee has been trained on previously and may need a slight memory jog for in order to perform well.   

Job aids are not tools either. Additions to an office that are meant to enhance comfort or efficiency are not job aids. An ergonomic mouse, state of the art lumbar support in an office chair and a standing desk are excellent supports in the workplace but they are not job aids.   

How is a job aid different from job training?

Job aids and job training are both very important components of supporting employee success but the two serve very different purposes. Using a job aid for training is not going to give you the outcome you are hoping for. And using a training tool when what is called for is a job aid will prove ineffcient.

While job training is focused on guiding employees through policies, procedures, software overviews, and other lengthy procedures required to fulfill their job descriptions, job aids act more like refreshers for when an employee needs to complete a very specific task like performing a single operation within a software or having a particularly targeted conversation. 

Job training sets the expectations for success in a role. Job aids help individuals complete specific tasks within their established role. 

How do job aids improve performance?

Training only goes so far, and it only stays in a person’s memory for a short time. When the face-to-face coaching session from a few weeks ago is already growing stale and you hear, “How do I do that task again?”, that’s when job aids shine. They’re available on demand with exactly the information employees need, whenever they need it. 

Both employers and employees have better days when answers are available right away. Instead of having to chase someone down for help, employees have a job aid that shows them the steps required to complete a process. No need to page through layers of documentation to find the exact instructions — a job aid is right next to their workstation so employees can complete the task correctly the first time.

Not only are job aids great at helping employees remember what they’ve learned from a training (such as processes they only need to do occasionally, and don’t need to memorize), they’re also helpful when something changes — for troubleshooting, for example, or to walk through steps of a slightly different workflow of new software versions. 

These efficiencies add up. According to Peregrine Performance Group, companies they work with have replaced a one-week training course with one day of training plus a job aid. Not only is less training needed, proficiency increased by 50%. When you take the time to write an effective job aid, you can expect these types of benefits:

• Save time by getting work tasks done more quickly
• Avoid making mistakes, thanks to having clear directions
• Less employee stress
• Reduce unnecessary back-and-forth help requests
• Better process/standards control by sharing the same knowledge with everyone all at once
• Less training and re-training
• Better employee and customer experience

Plus, they’re quick — job aides can be deployed 75% faster than traditional training, and at a much lower cost, for much better ROI. 

Why your team needs job aids

If you’ve worked on a team before, you know that at some point, without a doubt, tasks come up that are outside of the norm, or that need to be completed by someone who doesn’t normally do them. In these situations job aids make everyone’s life easier. They ensure productivity by taking the guesswork out of the task at hand and freeing up mental space for more pressing responsibilities. 

Avoid communication problems

Communication challenges are a major factor impacting productivity. Whether it’s waiting for questions to be answered or looking up missing information, the impact that communication limbo has on productivity is very real. 

Having a job aid to refer to means that employees can move forward with new or unfamiliar tasks without having to wait for responses or specific verbal instruction. 

Creating job aids helps to reduce the development of silos and dependencies, and increase productivity and effectiveness.

Make knowledge-sharing faster

It happens on an ongoing basis. A new procedure is developed, a task gets passed from one staff member to the next, a new workflow comes into play or some other event requires a quick way to bring everyone up to speed. 

Well, no one wants to spend their time (or their money) in a long training or watching over someone else’s shoulder to learn what to do. If a new policy gets rolled out, everyone needs to know about it of course, but it doesn’t have to take a large investment of time to make that happen. 

Simply creating and sharing a job aid can make the knowledge sharing process so much more efficient and in many cases, it is also more effective 

Spend less time on training programs

Job aids, of course, cannot and should not replace training programs but they can serve as helpful resources that reduce the amount of time spent on those programs. 

Creating job aids can serve as a supplement to your training programs, providing the necessary information for completing specific tasks or processes without having to book time within your training curriculum to cover them.

How to create effective job aids (step-by-step guide)

Just as you would when creating training material, creating job aids needs to be done with a clear goal in mind. It’s also helpful if you follow a structured process – this will create efficiency and consistency which are both very important variables for you and your team.  When you have the right process in place, and you follow it carefully, you will be able to easily create effective aids that your team will be happy to put to use. The job aid creation process should look something like this:

• Define the end user of your job aid
• Gather the required information about the task you’re creating a job aid for
• Decide on the best format to use
• Draft your job aid 
• Test your job aid and gather feedback
• Finalize and implement your job aid

Define your audience

Like any effective communication tool, you need to begin the job aid creation process by clearly identifying who the aid is for.  People with different roles, levels of responsibility and innate skill sets will require different approaches, for example you would take a much different approach to a job aid meant to serve a C-Suite executive than you would one for use in the mail room.

Consider interviewing or surveying the audience in order to get a very clear picture of what they need in order to be successful. Consider how they might best take in information, what the standard tools of their job are, and the level of education they will most likely have achieved. 

Knowing your audience is a key factor in creating job aids that will actually be effective and well utilized.

Gather information

To create a job aid that is effective in reaching its goal, you have to become very familiar with the task you are creating the aid for. You will need to be sure to include all of the inputs needed to complete the task, but you can take it a step further as well. 

Consult with people who do the task you are writing the job aid for. They will be able to provide valuable insight into any common pitfalls, tricky navigation or alternative methods, and potentially even share helpful tips and tricks to assist the end user of the job aid you are writing. 

While gathering as much information as possible will help make sure your end result meets your goal, it’s equally as important to know what not to include in your job aid. Think about what information is needed for the task to be completed and resist the urge to add in any “fluff”.  

Select a format 

Your job aid is only as effective as its presentation allows. There are many job aid formats to choose from and selecting the right one will go a long way in making sure the aid actually gets used. 

If the content and visual presentation of your job aid are not spot on, your audience simply won’t use it. To avoid this, be sure to consider how the aid will be distributed and used, in addition to whether the information can be conveyed better in graphic form than simple text. 

Here are a few examples of common job aid formats to consider:

Step-by-step instructions

Also referred to as the “cookbook” method, this job aid format breaks down each step and presents them in chronological order. This format is great for tasks that don’t lead to multiple outcomes, like how to access a shared network drive.

Flowcharts

Flow charts are an ideal format to use when creating a job aid for a task that has many possible outcomes depending on variables within the process. Users are guided through how to proceed by following steps prescribed based on the preceeding result. Visually, these aids often use arrows or boxes to represent the different paths available. Flow charts work well for tasks like responding to a customer service request.

Reference guides

Reference guides can effectively be used to support more than one process or task.  They serve as a collection of reminders or tips to help employees who are already familiar with the task at hand but who may need a resource to turn to for quick reference. This job aid format is a good choice for things like health and safety reminders. 

Decision tables

Decision tables present the user with a grid to help guide their decision making in processes influenced by multiple variables. Information is clearly compartmentalized and shared using very concise text so that decisions can be made without confusion. These types of job aids are excellent for use in quality control processes. 

Checklists

When writing a job aid for a task with lots of action items or requirements that don’t need to be completed in a particular order, a checklist can be very effective. This format presents all of the associated actions in a list format and users can check them off as they are completed. Checklists are good for use with tasks that need to be completed on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis like closing procedures for a retail store, or month end processes for bookkeeping.

Draft your job aid

Now that you have all the necessary information gathered and you have decided on the perfect format, you can begin to write your job aid! 

It can be very helpful to begin with an outline, so that you make sure the information is organized well and you have the correct order in place. 

Take your screenshots

Job aids that use more visuals than plain text are the most effective. This can feel intimidating but we’ve got an excellent solution. If you haven’t already, download your free trial of Snagit here.  

All you have to do after downloading is push the big red button and select the area on your screen that you want to capture. If the task for which you are creating a job aid is more physical than digital in nature, you can take photos instead.

Annotate

Once you have your screenshots captured, add text, arrows, numbering, or highlights to help make the steps as clear as possible and draw attention to specific portions of the process. Snagit can help you do all of this, and even combine your various screenshots into one document easily. With tools like automated numbering you won’t believe how simple it can be to make clear and effective visual aids with Snagit.

If directions span multiple screens or photos, combine them into one document and add any text around or on top of the visuals.

Have a consistent look 

Be sure to use a consistent style for your job aids. Fonts, colors, and sizes should be consistent and any company branding should be incorporated whenever possible. You can easily create templates for job aids within editing programs to make your process as efficient as possible. If you keep reading you’ll find a free template we have created to help you easily make job aids with a consistent look.

Make it multilingual

Your job aid isn’t going to be effective if people can’t read it. Make sure to consider the languages spoken by the staff you are looking to serve with your job aid and have the resource translated into as many languages as necessary to serve effectively.

Test your job aid and gather feedback

Now that you have created your job aid, there is one more step to complete in order to make sure it is effective. You need to test it!

Send your job aid to a few seasoned employees in the department that wil be using the aid and have them try it out. They will be able to identify whether any steps have been missed or a shorter path through the process is possible. Make any edits that are necessary based on testing before sending the job aid to your team. 

Finalize and implement

Your job aid is ready to be put to use! Distribute it to the team for use and provide clear instruction on when and how to use it.

Ask for feedback once it has been in use for a short time and make edits related to any valuable feedback you receive. 

It’s also important to evaluate the aid’s effectivenes. Check in with managers to see if they are receiving less repetitive questioning, or if customer satisfaction rankings have increased – whatever metric makes most sense for the goal assigned to the job aid.

Bonus: Snagit templates

Still unsure of how to get started with job aids? Let Snagit templates do the work for you!

First, click the Create button and choose Image from Template or select images from the Recent Captures tray, then right click and choose combine in template. You can select whichever templates best suit the needs of your job aid. 

Then, simply drag and drop your images and adjust them within the template. It’s that easy! For a full tutorial on making a job aid with Snagit, watch this great video below:

Job aids FAQ