7 Surprising Benefits of Employee Training Videos

In an increasingly complex and fast-paced business landscape, effective training is more vital than ever for empowering teams and driving organizational success. However, many companies still rely solely on conventional training methods like classroom-based sessions, field training, and printed manuals. In this post, we explore the overlooked yet transformational power of leveraging video for employee training.

What is an Employee Training Video?

In a nutshell, employee training videos refer to instructional video content produced with the specific aim of educating employees. They provide engaging visual guidance on policies, procedures, systems, products, compliance, safety protocols, and more.

So, we’ve put together a list of benefits of using employee training videos

1. Enhancing Knowledge, Retention and Comprehension

Research on multimedia learning principles shows that we process information far more effectively from words combined with visuals rather than plain text. Employee training videos incorporate interactive graphics, 3D animations, on-screen text, and more alongside narration to create an immersive learning experience that sticks.

• Research shows our brains process visual information 60,000 times faster than text. Employee training videos capitalize on this by incorporating interactive graphics, animations, screen recordings, and more to boost comprehension and retention.
  
• Employee Training videos enable multi-modal learning by simultaneously delivering information through visual, auditory, and textual mediums. This caters to different learning styles and reinforces messaging through each channel.
  
• Strategically embedding knowledge checks, quizzes, and interactive assignments within videos boosts learning outcomes through active employee participation. This cements understanding and gives employees practice applying concepts.
  
• Segmenting training content into focused 3-5 minute microlearning videos aligns with peak adult attention spans. Short videos demonstrating specific skills enable bite-sized yet highly digestible consumption optimized for retention.
  
• Researches show learning retention rates leap from just 5% for traditional lectures to a whopping 75% by leveraging video. Simply put, the more immersed and engaged the learner is, the better they comprehend and apply the knowledge gained.

2. Improving Accessibility and Inclusivity

Employee training videos enhance accessibility for diverse learners across educational backgrounds, training, locations, and language preferences through closed captions, and transcripts, Translation tools provide training videos in multiple languages.

• Enhancing accessibility expands the reach of training programs to diverse learners. Platforms like Trainn auto-generate closed captions and translations, catering to different literacy levels and languages.
  
• Viewers can toggle closed captions on or off and modify font sizes for enhanced readability. Integrated transcripts facilitate keyword search for quick topic access, especially beneficial for auditory and visual learners.
  
• Voice dictation and highlighting functions further aid employees with motor impairments in consuming and retaining video content efficiently at their own pace without manual note-taking.
  
• Videos stream across devices, ensuring consistent learning for blue-collar workers. For customer-facing teams, subtitled bite-sized product demo videos drive confidence during customer interactions.
  

Visually-driven video content also benefits frontline workers with lower literacy. Leading brands like Starbucks provide short instructional videos to service industry employees like baristas, bridging communication gaps. Our customer success case study showcases how Posist leveraged visually-driven video training content within their Posist Academy to effectively train frontline employees, overcoming literacy barriers and ensuring consistent, high-quality service across their restaurant locations.

3. Microlearning For Bite-Sized Training

Microlearning refers to delivering content in short, focused spurts. It aligns beautifully with our mobile-first, time-strapped world. Employee training videos adapt easily to microlearning formats of 3-5 minutes per video that can be consumed on the go.

Short videos enhance engagement and information retention compared to lengthy courses according to microlearning principles. They also allow self-paced, continuous employee development aligned with career growth.

4. Driving Cost Savings and Efficiency

Forrester's research shows that video-based training can reduce costs compared to traditional mediums while quintupling learner engagement. By centralizing training content creation and hosting employee training videos on unified platforms like Trainn, companies streamline training across global teams in a scalable, measurable, and cost-efficient manner.

Reduced need for expensive in-person training and associated travel logistics with easy access to on-demand video tutorials generate massive savings. Analytics provide actionable insights to optimize training ROI.

5. Facilitating Continuous Learning and Upskilling

Continuous learning is crucial for developing talent and gaining competitive advantage. However, traditional methods often fall short of flexibility and ease of access.

Hosting video tutorials on centralized platforms makes learning employee-driven. Teams can access employee training videos anytime, revisit concepts, and upskill progressively. Gamification through rewards and recognition further motivates usage.

Powerful analytics highlight knowledge gaps across individuals and departments, allowing data-driven and tailored training interventions over time that build capabilities strategically aligned with business objectives.

6. Enhancing Compliance and Risk Management

Communicating policies clearly is crucial, yet companies often struggle on this front leading to compliance issues. Employee training videos solve this elegantly by delivering information identically across the organization in an easy-to-understand format with built-in tracking.

• Documenting policy training completion through videos limits compliance risks, controls deviations, and minimizes infractions from process ignorance which plague analog training methods.
  
• Automated video assignments enable training administrators to track acknowledges across employees by required deadlines, triggering auto-escalations for stragglers to remain compliant.
  
• Unlike in-person sessions, centrally hosted online video libraries allow streamlined version-controlled updates. This ensures everyone gets the right policy messaging delivered consistently through the latest videos.
  
• Downloadable offline videos guarantee employee access to vital policy updates without network reliance for customer-facing, deskless, or remote teams.
  

By documenting training completion for audits and automating assignments, video tutorials minimize risk dramatically compared to manual policy distribution.

7. Better Onboarding For New Hires

Onboarding is a make-or-break experience for new hires that impacts retention and productivity. Transitioning to novel environments can be daunting without proper support.

• Onboarding videos humanize unfamiliar environments for new hires during disorienting yet defining early tenure periods which see peak attrition risks.
  
• Seeing leadership, cultural values, and workplace dynamics expressed visually through authentic footage, animations, or screen captures sworn employee transitions rather than dense manuals.
  
• Bite-sized videos optimally relay key expectations around cultural norms, systems access, and performance standards needed to excel rather than drinking from an onboarding firehose during intense early days.
  
• Easy search access empowers new employees to quickly reference policies needed at the moment rather than rummaging through sheets or asking constantly, boosting confidence and productivity faster.
  

Employee training videos help new employees seamlessly with product walkthroughs, introductions from leadership and teams, workplace orientation, and cultural assimilation. Platforms like Trainn even enable peer learning via discussion forums available with their Academy offering, thereby fostering connections. The result - more confident, prepared, and engaged employees.

Conclusion

Embracing the Transformative Power of Employee Training Videos

As explored in this post, implementing video-centric training unlocks immense yet surprisingly underutilized potential for better workforce enablement, productivity, cost savings, inclusivity, compliance, onboarding, and ultimately, bottom-line impact.

We encourage you to reimagine employee training in the modern video-first era whether upskilling customer service reps with microlearning videos, efficiently scaling sales onboarding globally, or finally replacing those dusty old manuals with interactive 3D animation tutorials. Partner with specialists at the cutting edge of video-based learning to build the talented, future-ready workforce needed to thrive today.

Transform your organization’s training culture with Trainn's comprehensive video learning platform.

Frequently Asked Questions

1. How can training videos improve productivity?

Training videos quickly equip employees with the skills needed to excel in their roles, reducing ramp-up time for new hires. Easy access enables employees to refresh knowledge needed at the moment rather than asking constantly or searching through resources. This drives productivity by cutting down redundant inquiries and empowering teams with relevant capabilities.

2. What kind of content can be covered through training videos?

Nearly any information from product usage guidelines, sales objection handling, workplace conduct policies, customer support best practices, machinery operations, and beyond can be conveyed through training videos. The versatile video medium allows for demonstrating complex hands-on skills that traditional mediums cannot encapsulate.

3. Can training videos replace my learning management system (LMS)?

Training video platforms complement LMS tools rather than replace them. While LMS functionality like course assignment, assessment analytics, and skill tracking remains critical, hosting engaging video content itself on such systems often proves challenging. Integrating a specialized video learning solution like Trainn with LMS expands multimedia capabilities.

4. Are training videos worth the investment?

Yes, not only do training videos boost productivity and efficiency, but research also substantiates compelling ROI - Forrester shows video adoption delivers over 500% improved workforce engagement metrics while slashing training costs by 50%. Additional gains from accelerated ramp times, improved compliance, lower attrition, and eased administration burdens further bolster the value.