Video is a highly desired medium for online learning. It can transform pages of text into movement, sound and action. It’s also very mobile device friendly. The use of video for induction training is powerful as video can share knowledge in ways which text – even interactive text – cannot.
Yet video production can be time-consuming, both in its initial creation but also to maintain and update over time.
In this article, let’s review why video for induction training is such a powerful medium, before looking at a few tips to make video more accessible in your next induction courses.
Video for induction training has unique benefits
There are several objectives in induction training which are more important than on-going training – objectives which play to the strengths of video.
- New employees need to obtain an overview of the organisation including its history, values and ethics. Video is an excellent way to do this. Video tells a story. Images, sounds and history can be brought to life. So can personalities. A video from the CEO of the organisation can impart more about that organisation’s culture in five minutes than a 30 minute written e-learning course could.
- New employees need help in building relationships within the organisation and getting to know the team. There’s no substitute for watching real people talking about their role. It adds authenticity to any training (and underscores Tribal Habits’ goal of having real people create real training). This also helps new employees get a sense of the team and the different areas within an organisation.
- New employees need to understand their new role and how it fits within the organisation. Using video to show a role in action, particularly if it is a practical role, can help new employees get a sense of what they will be doing. As another example, video of staff dealing with customers or colleagues can also help reinforce expected behaviours.
- New employees need to be introduced to the rules and regulations they need to comply with in their roles. Compliance topics often involve behaviours and choices. Video can give a human element to those decisions. It can help share why employees must be compliant, not just how.
As you can see, video can provide many valuable benefits to your online induction training.
Video for induction training should be authentic
Let’s now consider how you can best create video for induction training. While video has many benefits, if the use and production of video is not well managed it can be slow, expensive, time-consuming and even send entirely the wrong image.
- Use video sparingly. As much as the benefits of video for induction are many, it should still be used Just as too much text is boring, too much video can be overwhelming and lead to ‘skipping’ of content.
- Use a script. Much time can be wasted shooting and re-shooting video. This typically occurs when there is not enough planning. Improvising your video is dangerous. All too often you can end up having requiring dozens of takes. Then when you finally have a good take, you realise you forgot a key point! Invest in writing a script and have that script visible for any recording. You don’t need to script every word – bullet points of key ideas are often enough.
- Keep videos short. Unless you have extremely high production values (which would break another rule below), your videos should be short. Video for induction training should ideally be 2-5 minutes per video. First, this ensures your videos are focused. Second, it improves the chances of someone watching the entire video. Third, it makes it easier to return to those videos later and rewatch key parts (without having to skip through 20 minutes to find the part you wanted).
- Focus on authenticity. As noted above, videos should give an authentic view of your culture. This means using real people at your organisation, not actors or paid voice-overs. It also means focusing on the content. If you are authentic, relevant and passionate, your video does not need to be overly elaborate or expensive. The content is the key Invest in more content or more training than unnecessarily fancy video production.
- Use Narration instead. As an alternative to video, Tribal Habits has a unique Narration element. Narration allows you to combine images with voiceover – like a narrated slideshow. Tribal Habits then transforms your images and audio into the equivalent of a video – play/pause, skip forward/back, closed captions. Narration allows you to capture many of the benefits of video – images, audio – but with far less work. It is usually much quicker to prepare images and record a voiceover than shoot and edit a video. Later, you can edit individual slides or recordings to easily update the Narration (which is very hard to do with video). Narration can also help you prototype videos. You can create the perfect Narration and then later shoot an actual video.
With these simple tips, you can easily use video for induction training and inject culture, personality and engagement into the few days and weeks of your new employees.
Tribal Habits makes the process of using video for induction training even easier.
In addition to the amazing Narration element, we also have an excellent Video element.
- Videos uploaded into your modules in Tribal Habits are hosted in a dedicated video environment.
- Videos are encoded into 20 different formats and streamed by Tier 1 Content Delivery Networks (CDNs) to ensure high-quality playback on any device and bandwidth.
- Videos are locked into your Tribal Habits portal and cannot be downloaded or shared outside your secure environment.
- Finally, Tribal Habits includes a closed caption service allowing you to add captions to your videos at a very low cost!