How to Train Your Employees Using Video

Have you ever feared that, if a customer inquires about your products, your employees won’t know how to answer? Do you ever feel like your employees don’t quite understand what their colleagues are working on? Or what their team even does?

Yeah, we know that feeling, and it is scary! Thing is, when that happens? It’s often due to a failing training program. 

We get it – training is one of those things that nobody really enjoys much – Especially when it involves boring material that’s so generic it doesn’t even answer the right questions! However, the fact remains it still needs doing… But you need to do it right.  

An engaging program – powered by great content – can help you educate and develop your employees’ skills, attract better-qualified prospects, boost employee retention, and even enhance interdepartmental productivity! And that’s where corporate training videos come in.

Corporate videos are among the most important and effective teaching tools at your company’s disposal, letting you manage, deliver, and even track training-process progression.

How exactly? Well, that’s what we are going to talk about today!

Advantages of Video Training 

Using corporate training videos instead of awkward classroom lessons, boring manuals, or hard-to-schedule lectures, allows you to explain the ins-and-outs of your business’ operations in a compelling and effective way. 

After all, statistics suggest that viewers retain 95% of a message when they watch it, as opposed to  10% when they just read about it. Sounds good, right? And that’s just the tip of the iceberg! 

Another benefit is that the medium itself gives brands a lot of versatility to produce custom-made content. Covering exactly what you need to convey without room for misinterpretation, and reflecting your company’s personality into the content itself – Which gives new employees, not only a memorable training course but helps them establish a deeper connection with your brand.

Then you have the boon of scalability and permanence, as these videos allow you to educate big teams in a unified way, without sacrificing quality or performance. Moreover, unlike other traditional methods, as long as the content remains current, your training videos are always relevant! People can access it anytime, anywhere, and from any device, if they need a refresher. 

Corporate training videos can also put your staff in control of their own learning experience, by using interactive video training. Immersive scenarios, “how-to” processes, virtual tours, or even a “coach vision”  where you can add an expert’s input and convey in-depth knowledge that can benefit (and entertain!) your employees.

Last but not least, a corporate training video is a cost-effective alternative. Hiring and educating new staff is quite expensive and time-consuming. With corporate videos, not only will you reduce costs – instructor, travel expenses, etc, – but you’ll also save employees’ time and boost productivity making the material available at their convenience.

A Few Things to Mind Before Starting Your Pieces

Whether it’s for educational purposes or any other, there are some basic aspects to take into account before developing these types of videos.

• Consider the Audience: Who is the video for? Is it for new employees in need of training or veterans who just need updating with the latest techniques? Account for the intended audience’s skill level, general knowledge, and even if they would benefit from some sort of job-motivation incentives, then use that information to develop better-targeted content.
• Define Clear Goals: This part is essential and involves the objectives you want to accomplish with your corporate video. Having a clear goal from the get-go will make it easier to develop your video and measure your program’s overall success.
• Breakdown the Information: One of the most effective ways to train your employees with video is by breaking all your material into bite-sized pieces. It’s always preferable to have a couple of short-but-effective videos than a long one that bores and overwhelms the viewer.

Bonus tip: If you want engaging corporate training videos, try and keep your scripts simple! Use easy-to-understand language, especially if the topic has too many technical concepts or complex ideas. 

Smart Opportunities to Educate Your Teams With Video Training

Ok, with all that out of the way, it’s time to jump into the details of how you go about educating your employees by using video!

Onboarding Process

Do you remember how your first day at a new job was? Too many names, documents, processes, and rooms, right? 

Using video as an onboarding tool can help your new hires to get off to a good start. It strategically educates them when they are most eager to learn, and ultimately leads to a more efficient workflow. 

The good news is that there are several different types of videos you can use for this goal:

• Company Culture: You can teach new employees everything about your company’s values, mission, general story, founder, guiding principles… all while instilling a sense of belonging on your new employee.

Take this video from Hubspot as an example. Not only does it show who is who, but also showcases the company’s non-corporate environment. And it’s funny to boot!

• Basic Skills: Every company has its own way of doing things. Giving your new hires a baseline “know-how” video can be a very effective way to get the essentials out of the way. Scheduling meetings, conference calls etiquette, how to use the company’s intranet, and any kind of tip to help them set up their technology or work-related systems isn’t mandatory but can help them quickly get up to speed.
• Role-Specific Knowledge: At some point, your new hires will be ready for – and in need of – more detailed info about their position. You can break-down complicated topics, rules or more in-depth material and use video to educate them efficiently.

Here’s a training video example from United Pharmaceuticals:

Products & Services Breakdown

When it comes to employee training, there’s a golden rule: Your employees have to know your product or service like the palm of their hand. 

Brands wouldn’t like to admit it, but it’s not uncommon that most employees in a given company have but a passing understanding of how the products or services they sell actually work – more so when said products or services involve technical processes. 

A product or service breakdown video can be extremely useful in teaching your staff – especially to sales and customer support teams – what your product or service is all about. Instructional screen recordings, field videos, and standard step-by-step videos are some of the more popular alternatives you can use to train your staff on these matters.

Take, for example, this tutorial that teaches you all about Asana and Slack integration in under two minutes. Talk about efficiency.

Coaching New Management

Excellent management is crucial for a company to be as productive and efficient as possible. A solid mentorship video program for new management can help them understand what’s expected of them, what the company’s goals are, and the needs or requirements of their position. 

Take this training video as an example, they use a whiteboard video to quickly teach managers how to delegate, give them tips, and show them the pros and cons of their tasks. Engaging, highly educational, and all under 5 minutes!

Customer Service and Sales Teams Training

These people are the face of your company. Never forget that! Thing is, these front-line positions often involve a lot of turnover, which means there are always new people coming in that need to be trained. 

Since they deal with your customers directly, it’s vital to provide them with a whole package of “dos and don’ts,” tips on how to interact, and even a nice message to boost their morale and confidence. And there’s no better way to do all that than with video.

Here’s a couple of examples of training videos with two entirely different approaches, yet they accomplish the same goal: To prime employees with useful client-interaction techniques.

Compliance & Safety 

This type of training is not only important but also should be mandatory for everyone. It’s designed to educate your employees on the laws, ethics, and company regulations, and foster a positive corporate culture.

In this case, corporate training videos can be really helpful to cover delicate issues, like sexual harassment, bullying, accident prevention, and give every piece of information, steps, and details needed to safely take action.

More Uses That May Come In Handy

While we already covered the most important/common ways to use them, there are as many types of training videos as situations you can imagine. But, in case you need more inspiration, here’s a shortlist with other convenient corporate training video uses:

• Promotional Training: For employees promoted to a new position, it’s ideal to make them go through some type of training, and video can make it really cost-effective.
• Meeting Recordings: Information shared in meetings is always valuable for employees who didn’t attend. With video, they can go over through ideas shared in past meetings, decisions made, and all pieces of insights. 
• Live Events or Conferences: With video, you can expand the reach of important events to part of your staff that couldn’t attend.
• New Policies: Whenever your company has new policies or methods, you can use video to keep your employees up to the latest changes. 
• Employee Recordings: This can be helpful to review your employees’ performance and identify possible issues or opportunities for improvement.

To Wrap Up

If you want your business to succeed, you need well-trained employees. 

A solid video training program often translates into motivated, more productive, and engaged employees. Why? Because they get to understand the company as a whole, as well as their role in it.

And while there are other alternatives for it – traditional classroom training, manuals, and even pamphlets – none can hold a candle to corporate training video: it’s cost-effective, engaging, and always available.

And if you are ready to start working on a video like that for your own company, get in touch and let’s talk about how we can help you out! 🙂