Letter from the President – Dan Raymond

For the past 35 years I have had the good fortune to assist companies in improving worker job performance.  I have also had the opportunity to work with very creative people in these organizations who produced thousands of innovative job aids.  As a performance intervention, job aids can support any kind of performance from the most technical “hands on” to the most “creative thinking process.”  They work just as well with machine operators as they do with leaders.  I continue to be amazed at what people can do on the job, in any type of job, with well-written job aids.

Job aids are one of the most powerful and yet often the cheapest and least time consuming performance support systems to produce.  I have seen situations where days of training were replaced by a few well-constructed job aids.  I have also watched new performers follow procedure and decision-making guides to produce the same results as experienced performers.

In this age of knowledge management, it is popular in some circles to say that job aids are obsolete, that they produce workers who all think alike and cannot apply creative solutions to new work problems.  This accusation overlooks the reality that there are many jobs that require people to follow a set of established procedures with clearly defined job performance standards.  It is also possible to create job aids that document what the most creative and experienced workers think about when they approach problems and need to make accurate decisions.

In the 2 1/2 day Building Better Job Aids Workshop™, we will provide you with the skills to decide if job aids and/or training is part of the solution to a performance problem and if so, the tools needed to design, develop, and test six different types of job aids.  The workshop is criterion-referenced and the majority of class time is spent practicing eleven different skills.  We guarantee you will acquire and demonstrate the skills taught in the workshop or we will refund your workshop tuition.

We will also support you after the workshop.  We promise to give you written feedback on the first job aid you produce after the workshop.  We can also provide you support to conduct the workshop in-house for your staff or colleagues, create a job aid production line on-the-job (in a "JAM session"), certify your own instructors to conduct the workshop, and develop training to support the job aids.  We don’t treat you as a one-shot workshop attendee.  We are more interested in a long-term partnership where we can continue to help you develop your skills and provide your organization with any needed coaching or assistance.

We are in the business of helping companies help their people do their jobs well.  That is the only reason we are in business.  We focus on results and guarantee results.  We will help you build your workforce for tomorrow.