Employee training videos can be excellent supplements to the on-the-job training every employee goes through when starting a new job. But when they’re used improperly (or not at all), employees can’t benefit from them, and training gaps start to appear – gaps which cost time and money to fill. When made available in the right ways and produced with employee needs in mind, these training videos can all but replace rote new-hire manuals and the out-dated instructional VHS tapes and DVDs people have been watching since getting their first summer jobs years (or decades) ago.
Transforming the old values of human resources starts with technology. Today, with advances in video communications, employers can supplement and scale their training programs. The usefulness of employee training videos has made them indispensable for companies large and small, including Fortune 500 corporations like Microsoft and IBM. Training videos have been embraced by the learning and development industry to help teach students around the world.
Even with the rise of video technology in corporate communications, however, many organizations are resistant to change. The reasons behind this reluctance to embrace video technology vary from company to company. Some don’t want to invest in technology they feel they can’t fully utilize. Others believe the costs outweigh the benefits. Some simply don’t give their workers the latitude to experiment with collaboration methodologies. For those looking to challenge these ways of thinking, it helps to know where the biggest opportunities lie for implementing new video technology and systems.
Improving the Onboarding Process with Employee Training Videos
One entry point to introduce video communication solutions is the onboarding process. New hires will struggle with adapting to everything about their new jobs. Employees often have difficulty absorbing reams of new information all at once. Employee training videos featuring basic information about day-to-day duties and how to perform them create a baseline that new hires can start from and return to when they need a quick refresher. Creating engaging, live or animated training videos is inexpensive and relatively easy.
Building a standard set of videos into your onboarding system also allows you to track how new employees are using and responding to the content. You can track video views, actions taken and more. These numbers can then help you build out and improve your onboarding process, filling in skill or knowledge gaps with additional video content or traditional onboarding processes as needed. Once a video training portal is set up, adding more content to the system can be pretty painless.
Build a Basic Skills Toolbox
In addition to creating a video system for onboarding, you can use video technology to create a basic skills toolbox, where all employees – new or experienced – can quickly review internal processes and protocols. Every company has its own way of doing things, from scheduling meetings to creating and collaborating on projects. The way employees do these everyday things matters. When policies change or employees start deviating from protocols, it can cause problems that ripple outward. You can push employee training videos out to those who need them using digital postcards and nip the problem in the bud. Any employees who need to review a certain process – for whatever reason – can access the information they need through a video communication portal. If something changes, digital postcards with explainer or training videos will help you notify all those affected by the change at once.
Better Demos
Sometimes, employees simply don’t know enough about the product or service they’re working to sell or improve. Building a library of demo videos just for sales or customer-support teams can be a way to ensure everyone has the same information about all your products and services. With everyone on the same page, better sales and more effective innovations can follow. Animated explainer videos are easy to create, including all the information you and your employees need. With them you can build a workforce that’s incredibly knowledgeable about the mission and brand your company is putting forward. Sometimes, these videos can be used in customer-facing ways as well.
Video communications are here to stay. If your organization can’t adapt to these new technologies and take advantage of them, you could get left behind.