How to train your employees with video

Sally’s just started her new job at a finance company. It’s day 2 and her calendar is swamped with training sessions, product trials, and meet-the-team lunches. It all comes down to too many names, documents, processes, and all the other elements of starting a new role at a new company.

Whether it’s new starters like Sally, or existing employees, training is one of those things that can be overwhelming to complete. So, how do you do it in a way that’s both easy and engaging? Well, that’s where video comes in.

Using video to train your employees will help capture their attention and break down complicated information in an easy-to-digest way, leading to improved work productivity and better knowledge of your products and services. 

Let’s look at 4 ways to introduce video into your training schedule...

Employee onboarding

Let’s face it, we’ve all been in Sally’s position! The first few days at a new job can be exhausting… but it’s also when new starters are most eager to learn, and so using video as an onboarding tool can help your new hires get off to a great start. 

Studies show that just one minute of video equates to 1.8 million words! This makes video an extremely valuable format for conveying relevant information at the point of starting a new job. And with engaging, visually appealing content, your employees are more likely to remember the information, leading to a more efficient onboarding process.

Employee onboarding videos could be a series of introductions to your service or products, or video introductions of the team and their job roles. This takes the awkwardness out of introductions and will make asking questions in the first few weeks a whole lot easier, improving that overall organizational culture (tick, tick, tick!)

Burger King really went all out with their onboarding training video, bringing in Snoop Dogg to train employees on grilled hot dogs:

Coaching management

New managers in your organization are at a make-or-break stage of development. To ensure they succeed, you need to help them grow into high-performing leaders, and training videos are a super-effective way to do this. You could use video-based learning to teach delegation skills, highlight the pros and cons of their job role, and even reinforce the company’s goals to ensure they’re on the right track.  

And let’s not forget your existing management... People retain information better the more they’re exposed to it, and so training and development shouldn’t be treated as a one-time thing. The best and longest-lasting skills are acquired when training is made continuous and has strategic intent. This way, the material remains fresh in the employee’s mind. It also ensures your employees are constantly up-to-date with dynamic market environments and the rapidly changing economy.

Check out this informative whiteboard video by Workforce Singapore on how to manage people and become a better leader:

Training the customer service and sales teams

These are the people on your front line. And in any business, it’s these teams that often have a high turnover, meaning a constant influx of new people that all need to be trained. Using video-based learning will help your sales and customer service crew visualize themselves in the customer’s situation and think about how they can improve the experience.

This is a great example of training the sales team. The 2D animation from Nikwax introduces the product, highlights its benefits and the solution to the customer, and even offers tips on how to present the product at the end of a sale. This video enables the sales team to better connect with the end-user after having visualized what steps they go through before even considering the product: 

Compliance and safety

Compliance and safety training should be mandatory for everyone in the business. This is the information that you really want your employees to connect with so that they not only comprehend the facts but retain it later on if an issue arises. This means ditching those dated PowerPoint slides and brightening up compliance training with some super engaging video content.

Compliance and safety can be a somewhat dry topic… So presenting the information in bite-sized pieces is a great way to engage viewers and help them understand what’s being said. Here’s a great example of a short training video that highlights the safe use of machinery:

You could even use humor for improved memory recall, like this hilarious lightning safety video hosted by a raincloud:

We all know that well-trained employees lead to better business. And there are many different ways to train your employees - manuals, presentations, pamphlets - but none of them are as simple, engaging, and cost-effective as video. 

If you have a training video idea in mind, or you just know you want to introduce video-based learning as part of your employee onboarding, drop our Sparkol Studio team and message and they’ll be happy to help 👇