Beyond the course: How job aids make workplace learning actually stick

Job aids make sure employees do not have to rely solely on memory to do their jobs well. They put the right information in the right place at the right moment. Because job aids are used differently from courses, they need different content and a different publishing format.

JollyDeck is built for both – learning and supporting employees on the job. Read on to find out what job aids are, how to build them in JollyDeck, and when to use them alongside a course or instead of one.

When courses alone are not enough

Every workplace learning programme has the same quiet problem. Employees complete a course, score well on the assessment, and return to their desks. Then, within a day, more than half of what they learned is gone.

This is not a failure of the course. It is simply how memory works: without reinforcement or application, new information fades quickly. The answer is not a better course. It is what sits alongside it — a job aid.

Job aids are not a new idea. But in too many e-learning programmes they are underused or added as an afterthought.

Read this article if you want to understand:

• What job aids are (and how they differ from a course)
• The role of job aids in workplace e-learning (and why they deserve more than an afterthought)
• How to create and publish job aids in JollyDeck (and what makes the platform built for this)
• How to write content for a job aid and which format to use

What is a job aid

A job aid gives an employee the information they need at the moment they need it. Not in a scheduled session. Right there, at the point of doing the work.

A checklist on the wall. A one-page reference card. A short video linked from a help menu. These are all job aids.

That timing is what draws the clearest line between a job aid and a course.

Job aid vs. course

A course builds knowledge: it introduces concepts, explains reasoning, develops new capabilities. A course asks something of the learner: attention, effort, time away from the work itself. A job aid asks none of that.

A job aid assumes that foundation already exists. It does not teach — it reminds, guides, or prompts the employee through a task.

The difference is not about format or length. It is about purpose and timing. A course prepares the employee. A job aid supports them while they act.

When deciding whether information belongs in a course or a job aid, ask yourself: will the employee need this during the learning, or during the work? If the answer is during the work, it’s a job aid.

Why job aids work

Job aids do not rely on memory. 

Job aids do not ask the employee to remember. They do not rely on memory to bridge the gap between training and application. The knowledge is carried by the aid, available at the moment of need.

They meet employees where they are. 

Employees rarely have time to return to a course when they hit an obstacle at their desk. A job aid meets them where they are: no course to reopen, no colleague to interrupt, no waiting for the next training session. This matters especially for hybrid and remote teams, where the informal support of a shared office — a colleague nearby, a manager to ask — is less available or simply not there.

They are faster and cheaper to maintain. 

Job aids are significantly faster to produce than courses and faster to update. When a process changes, a guide or checklist can be updated immediately. No outdated binders, no waiting for a course update cycle. 

They reduce errors. 

When a process is documented clearly and kept accessible, it is performed consistently  — particularly for tasks that are performed infrequently or involve multiple people across different locations.

Sometimes they are the better tool. 

For procedural tasks where the employee already has background knowledge, a well-written job aid can outperform a full course entirely. If the goal is correct performance rather than deep understanding, there may be no need for a course at all.

Job aids and e-learning: the full picture

Courses and job aids are most powerful when designed together — not as separate projects, but as two parts of the same learning experience.

The course runs once and builds understanding. The job aid stays, a companion the employee reaches for whenever they need to act on that understanding.

Situation	Best approach
New concept, skill, or behaviour	Course
Known task, occasional performance	Job aid
Complex topic with ongoing application	Course + job aid
Simple procedure, existing knowledge	Job aid

Remember: One is for learning, the other is for doing.

How to publish job aids in JollyDeck

Because of the context in which job aids are used the standard course format in JollyDeck is not the right fit.

In a course, employees move through content linearly, slide by slide. That is right for learning, but the opposite of what an employee needs mid-task. They want to reach the relevant step immediately, not navigate through the full content to find it.

JollyDeck’s reference format solves this. Published as a reference, content becomes directly navigable; any slide, immediately, in any order.

	Course (learning)	Reference (job aid)
Navigation	Linear, slide by slide	Direct access to any slide
Purpose	Building understanding	Supporting action
Key metric	Completion rate	Open rate

The reference format is available both when publishing directly in JollyDeck LMS and when exporting content as a SCORM package.

Check the video below to see how to publish a job aid as a reference in JollyDeck, what the experience looks like for the learner, and what analytics are available to the manager.

Why publish job aids in JollyDeck

A printed checklist pinned to a noticeboard, a PDF sent over email, a file buried in a shared drive — these are all ways of sharing job aids. They are also easy to lose, hard to update, and impossible to track. Employees open outdated versions, forget where to find them, or miss them entirely. Publishing job aids in JollyDeck solves this.

Everything in one place

Learners find their courses and job aids in the same library. No hunting through shared drives, no broken links, no separate systems to log into. Performance support is where the learning already is.

Always current

Update a reference in JollyDeck and every employee gets the latest version immediately. No re-sending files, no risk of outdated copies circulating across the organisation.

Linked to learning

Job aids can be connected directly to the courses they support — attached to a learning path, or linked within a course. The transition from learning to doing becomes seamless.

Trackable

A job aid published as a reference in JollyDeck is measurable. See who opened it, how many times, and which slides received the most attention. This tells you which parts of a process employees find most challenging and where your job aids are actually doing their job.

Version control

Every update is managed in one place. There is no confusion about which version is current, no risk of different teams working from different documents.

Writing for the format

A course is written for comprehension: it provides context, explains reasoning, and walks the employee through the logic of a topic. A job aid is written for speed: it removes the explanation and leaves only what the employee needs to act correctly in that moment.

Reusing course slides as a reference without reworking them produces something too long and too slow to scan. 

The good news is that the content for job aids does not always need to be created from scratch. Much of it already exists inside courses you have built — process steps, decision tables, checklists. Extracting and restructuring that material is one of the most cost-effective ways to build a job aid library.

Job aid content formats

Several formats can serve as job aids. The right choice depends on the task and the moment the employee will reach for it.

Step-by-step guides work best for fixed processes where order matters, infrequent tasks, and software walkthroughs.

See an example of a step-by-step guide for line managers onboarding new starters.

Checklists are lists of required actions or criteria that must be completed or verified. Their value is in ensuring nothing is missed. Use checklists for compliance and safety procedures, quality control, and any process where consistency across people or locations matters. 

See how a checklist in JollyDeck can guide employees through a critical process, such as handling a Subject Access Request, step by step.

Video walkthroughs are particularly effective for tasks where seeing the action removes ambiguity. Best used for software demonstrations, tasks where technique matters, and situations where a live example is more convincing than a written description.

Quick reference cards (one-pagers) are designed to be kept close. A good format for anything consulted often and under time pressure — frequently used codes, shortcuts, or key terms.

See how a one-pager can help a customer service team handle aggressive clients in the moment they need it most.

Infographics and visual guides work best for process overviews, onboarding materials, and topics where flow or hierarchy is central to understanding.

Other formats — flowcharts, knowledge bases, in-app guidance, and self-assessment tools — serve specific situations well. But typically they live outside a learning platform: on intranets, inside the software they support, or within performance management systems. They are worth knowing about when designing a broader learning and development strategy, even if they fall outside what JollyDeck is built for.

Closing thought: what happens after the course ends

Great workplace learning is not just about building better courses. It is about designing what happens after the course ends — the moment an employee returns to their desk, faces a real task, and needs the knowledge to actually work.

Job aids close that gap. They are too important to be treated as an afterthought — a PDF attached at the end of a course as an apology. They are part of the design and in many cases, the content to build them is already sitting inside courses you have built.

Start there. Find a process, a checklist, or a set of steps buried inside one of your courses — extract it, reshape it for the moment of use and offer it where your learners can actually reach it.