In this article we are going to go through the benefits and process of creating effective employee training videos in 2021.
Training videos are the best way to convey the knowledge related to any crucial procedures or process. They will save you lots of time as you don?t have to take your employees step by step through the entire process.
Having a good training video for your employees will increase your efficiency, save your money and make things a lot easier for your team. By the end of this article you will understand the value of a good employee training video and how you can make one yourself.
What are the benefits of having a Training Video for your employees?
Every company employs staff to work for them and each of those employees have daily tasks to complete or targets to achieve. There may be one or two who are really good at their job. Sometimes they end up being the only ones having the knowledge of any process. If such an employee ever leaves the company then they will take the entire knowledge of that process with them. This will make your company vulnerable.
Now when a new employee is hired for that job he will need to be trained first. If the training is provided face to face, it will cost a lot of money and further hamper productivity. Moreover, you can?t be sure if the new employee is being trained properly. In such cases, a training video can help in getting the employee quickly acquainted with the role he needs to perform. This will save both time and human resources.
Imagine a situation where a member in your company leaves and a new employee is hired. Do you need to get someone to leave the work they are doing and teach the new employee about his job role or can the new employee just refer to a training video.
Another practical use of training video is that it can be referred to anytime for refreshing one’s knowledge. If an employee has to perform any process that he has not done for quite some time he can quickly refer to the training video to refresh his memory.
By now you must have made up your mind about making a training video for your employees. But the question is how do you get started? Hereinafter, we will show the simple steps for creating a training video for your employees.
How to create great training videos for your employees?
Here are our four steps to make useful and effective training videos:
- Firstly, you need to identify your best practiced processes and document them. Now this will serve multiple purposes. It will not only refine your process but also enhance them. You may come across some steps that are not needed and get rid of them. Further, you can also fill up all the gaps in the processes.?
- Next you should consult with your staff who perform the process on a daily basis. You should not fill the training video with processes that your employees don?t actually perform. Since, at the end of the day it is them who perform all the tasks involved in a process.?
- You need to devise ways to deliver even the most complicated information in an understandable manner. Try to avoid using jargon or complex words. Go through your lines to make sure that your message is clearly delivered in a few words.?
- You need to grab the full attention of your audience. So, try not to make the video boring. There are tons of training videos out there that make the viewers sleepy and lose interest in the job. You can make use of animations like whiteboard animation to keep your audience engaged. They are very effective at delivering sophisticated ideas and information in a simple and entertaining way. Don?t worry, you don?t have to be an animation expert to create such animations. There are various video animation software that can be used for creating animations. All you have to do is get the narration for your video ready.?
- Training videos are not made to be pretty with lots of graphics or music. Usually they are straight forward and bland. That is why people tend to lose interest in them. You will have to captivate the attention of your audience without making the video too informal. You could make use of humour whenever possible to lighten up the mood.?
So, basically you need to inspire your employees to perform the process by creating training videos that are not only useful but also engaging.
Now let?s look at some of the mistakes or pitfalls that you need to avoid in your training videos.
Things to Avoid in your Training Videos for Employees.
Firstly, since it is a video you need to show them how it’s done rather than just telling them. Videos cater to our vision. They will be more effective if they show how anything has to be done or how anything looks. This way the viewers of the video will not lose interest and learn more. Moreover, things seen from our eyes can be better retained too.
Secondly, try not to make your training video too long. Recent trends have shown that longer videos have higher chances of losing its audience. So, you need to cut down the unnecessary details or information from your videos. Keep the video as short as possible while clearly conveying the main points. Just provide the viewers with the answer to their questions. Don?t give information that they are not interested in.
This brings us to our third point, which is to think like your audience. Before producing any video, you need to think like your audience to identify the questions for which they might want answers. Put yourself in their shoes and think how the video can make their life easier. What points you need to include in the video and which ones you need to exclude. This will make your video relevant and useful for the audience.
When you make your video relevant by providing to the point answers to the questions in the minds of the audience your videos become more engaging. You should not bore your audience with unwanted details and information. This further shortens the length of your video and maintains the interest of your audience.
Next thing to avoid is the use of unnecessary jargon. Corporate language, acronyms and buzzwords are not at all useful for the purpose of training videos. The language of your video should be as simple as possible. The audience should easily understand the message provided therein. But you need to be careful because being too simple sometimes does not deliver the important message.
Another important thing to avoid in your training videos is the use of condescending language. Do not use puns or double entendre in the script of your videos.
As we have mentioned above you can use humour in your training videos. But humour should always be subjective. The main purpose of training videos is to deliver important information to train the employees. So, the video need not be filled with jokes or gags in the name of humour. Light humour whenever it is suitable can be used. It should not defeat the primary purpose of the training video that is to train the employees.
Lastly, you will be at a loss if you don?t track your training video after publishing it. You should check the number of views, engagement or survey the viewers or employees to find out if they are finding the video useful. This will help you to learn more about the process of creating training videos and you can create better videos next time.
Conclusion
We have come to the end of our guide to creating effective employee training videos. By now you must have understood the importance of training videos. Our guide to make effective training videos will help you get the most out of your training videos. Further, make sure to avoid all the mistakes or pitfalls that are mentioned above to make your videos more effective.
About Author
Aditya Vikram is the founder and CEO of Essence Studios, India?s top explainer video production company. When he is not busy running the business, he shares his knowledge and experience in the field of digital marketing through blogs. He is also an avid follower of cricket.
