6 Tips to Create Effective Training Videos
Are your employees disconnecting from the training content that you work so hard to design? Here are some simple tips to avoid making ineffective training videos for your business!
As a Digital Training Manager, how often do you find that training videos you spend your time and efforts on are not being watched? Or perhaps the employees were quick to forget what the information in the videos is supposed to impart? If this ever happens to you, don’t worry, you’re not alone. Create effective training videos is not an easy task.
According to a 2019 survey by New York-based video technology provider Kaltura, 72% of employees don’t pay full attention to training videos. It’s a real head-scratcher to modern-day L&D executives. The disconnection between staff and training content can obstruct knowledge delivery as well as put valuable resources to waste. If left untouched, disengagement may even lead to a massive decrease in business proficiency.
Let’s take a look at what’s the problems with your training videos. We will also propose several simple solutions to bridge the gap between your employees and your training content.
Why Your Employee Training Videos May Go Unwatched Or Undigested?
If your corporate training videos fail to fully engage their audience, here are the possible causes of training video issues:
- Lack of Interactive Features
- Too Long/Too Short Content
- Incompatibility With Employees’ Time
- Failure To Establish Company’s Training Culture
Training Video Issues #1: Lack of Interactive Features
Remember the time when offline training is still a thing? It utilizes the interaction between learners and learners or learners and trainers to get the message across. That’s also the number one reason why many people claim online training seems less effective. They may have been exposed to poorly designed courses with little or no interactive features.
Human interaction holds the key to the future of online training. Let’s revisit the Kaltura survey we mentioned above. It states that over 82% of the employees asked to believe that interactive videos capture their interest better than traditional ones. Unfortunately, most businesses nowadays use ineffective training videos such as talking-head videos or lecture recordings for internal training. They’re dry, unnatural, and learners cannot really indulge in the knowledge.
Other companies, on the other hand, are fully aware of the potential of interactive training content. However, it’s not always the case where they possess the tools or expertise needed to produce something remotely close to what they have in mind. They end up with text-heavy, graphic-light training videos that make the content even less appealing. Over time, the text becomes monotonous, and employees start to lose interest.
Training Video Issues #2: Too Long/Too Short Content
Another cause of ineffective training videos is the duration. Should the videos be too brisk, they cannot deliver the information/skills the employees need. But if the content is too long, it will discourage people from learning.
Your training programs, as well as employee engagement videos, should only contain relevant, high-quality information. The materials must meet the needs of employees, address their individual goals, and travel no more than that. No one likes to take part in training programs that offer little or no value to professional knowledge.
Keep your training content at the right duration and relevance to avoid employees losing interest and disengaging from the experience.
Finding more ideas to make the best of educational animation in your training? Download this.
Animation Application in Employee Training - Preparation Guide
Training Video Issues #3: Incompatibility With Employees’ Time
We’re living in a fast-moving business landscape that requires businesses and their employees to adapt to changing circumstances rapidly. There will always be new things to learn, yet the amount of time you have remains the same.
Once tasked with a training program, your employees have to take on an extra workload. They must still complete their office duties while incorporating the training and making time for personal matters. If you time the training wrong, you may force employees to rearrange their schedules or miss out on life.
Training sessions within the working hours will not solve the above-mentioned issue. If training eats into employees’ working time, it causes backlogs. When too much backlog starts mounting up, stress appears. Gradually, employees will disconnect themselves from the training experience.
Training Video Issues #4: Failure To Establish Company’s Training Culture
Training should be part of your organization’s culture, and your employees should understand its value. Corporate training shouldn’t seem like a mandatory activity, but more of a beneficial one that is actually useful. If your business uses employee engagement videos to deliver compliance training, it’s not going to work. Your staff won’t learn because the information is helpful or the skills are valuable. They learn because the boss said so.
6 Tips to Create Effective Training Videos
In case you feel your employees are disconnecting from your training content, try the approaches below:
- Diversify The Delivery With Multimedia
- Give What Employees Need
- Opt For MicroLearning
- Adapt To Employees’ Schedules
- Promote Company Training Culture
- Find A Trusted Partner
Find out how we turn new people into team players faster & smarter with animation:
1. Diversify The Delivery With Multimedia
Present your information and skills in a way that’s easy for employees to process. Don’t just use text or talking-head lectures. Spice up your employee engagement videos with charts, infographics, or animation. Try live-broadcasting the videos as a group to trigger communication and critical thinking. That allows your employees to actually interact with the videos instead of just mindlessly watching them.
2. Give What Employees Need
To make sure the training materials meet the needs of your employees, carry out an analysis before starting the project. You must determine which information to include in the program and which to omit. Personal preferences and expectations are also something to consider.
Each person learns in a uniquely different way. While one employee may be able to master new skills just by reading a manual, others require interactive simulations and branching scenarios that immerse them in the situation. Find out which approach appeals to the majority of your staff, then design your content based on it.
3. Opt For MicroLearning
Microlearning upcycles your old, long, extensive training courses into short bursts of information that employees can access from anywhere. There are many reasons why microlearning for employees is the best method. Microlearning videos are short, often just a few minutes long. They focus on one single point of interest only, with no distraction. Employees can pick up exactly what they need to learn in a quick and effective fashion.
4. Adapt To Employees’ Schedules
Digital Learning Managers should strive to create flexible training programs that allow breathing room for employees. They can decide when and how they want to receive the information. To save their time, provide microlearning resources that help during their moment of need.
Instead of cramming all the curriculum in one tight timeline, try a cyclical approach that spans longer with stages. This way, your employees have time to hone the skills they are learning and practice them during on-the-job situations.
5. Promote Company Training Culture
It’s always a good idea to motivate your staff before corporate training programs and get them excited about what programs have to offer. You can use newsletters, social media posts, or even free eBooks to help employees explore the advantages. The primary goal is to make them feel like internal training is a perk, not job compliance. Convince your staff that training allows them to be more productive and develop their potential.
6. Find A Trusted Partner
Above are some pretty basic solutions to improve the engagement of your effective training videos. However, change takes time. The transition to effective online training cannot happen overnight. It requires patience, expertise, and effort.
And as the manager of a new remote training program, your responsibility won’t stop there. You are going to be very busy handling other tasks that only you can handle. So why not partner up with a trusted provider to smoothen the production of employee engagement videos?
By allowing others to take care of the illustrations, infographics, and animation, you will be able to shift your focus and reallocate valuable resources to different sectors. Direct your time on creating custom, organization-specific content for your employees.
Spare yourself the stress and team up with F.Learning Studio. Let your talented creators set your business on the path to success with better training quality.
Why Is F.Learning Studio Different?
- Expert Producers of Employee Training Videos: We’re proud to be the producer of numerous successful corporate training series. Our Satisfied clients include Integrity & Values, and One QBE – an international corporation with more than 14,500 employees.
- Seamless Management of Large Project: We have developed a systematic approach to handle large work scope. Each of our projects comes with its own Project Manager, consultant, animator, and illustrator.
- Trusty Consultants: F.Learning Studio values your though and concerns. We always listen to what you have in mind. That allows us to specify the most logical and effective solutions to your problems.
Recommend reading:
Top 5 Best Examples Of Employee Engagement Videos
#1 Sole Trader Business Example | Business Laws Animation (By F.Learning Studio)
Law courses are full of abstract knowledge. It can be heavy and in-depth, which puts insane pressure on legal employees. By adding animation, we help make the theories less dull and dry with visual metaphors. We also incorporate the theories into daily situations to demonstrate how they should be applied in real life.
#2 PN Junction Explained | Electrical Engineering Animation (By F.Learning Studio)
Instead of giving a full-on lecture about electric conduits and ions, the video only focuses on one thing only: PN Junction. This way, it doesn’t drown learners in irrelevant information. They get exactly the information they’re looking for.
#3 Animated Training Videos – One QBE Internal Training
One QBE planned to develop a consistent internal training course that all employees can easily access from various locations around the world. F.Learning Studio incorporated animation to create consistent content to meet their demands. Our video helped bridge the knowledge gap among 14,500 employees of One QBE in 37 different countries.
#4 Explainer Video for Corporate – Aviassist Drone Training
Aviassist was looking for a way to provide aviation expertise to Australian businesses which are trying to optimize drone usage. F.Learning produced a video discussing the no-fly zones in Australia. We use animation to illustrate the details of heights and dangerous situations as well as help learners to clearly visualize the altitude, length, or different safe areas to operate drones.
#5 Cash Flows Statement Indirect Method | Accounting Equation Animation (by F.Learning)
Accounting training videos always contain way too much statistics and data. That’s what makes them less appealing for learners. Luckily, F.Learning Studio was able to cancel the information using animation. We added interesting motions with minimum colors and characters to captivate learners’ eyes while not distracting them from the key information. The video also uses the scenario-simulated method to bring theory to life.
Keen to check out more examples of animated corporate training videos? Here are 11 brilliant samples to inspire you!
Conclusion
Only by empowering employees’ self-development can you set your business on the path towards better results. Always remember that internal training is mandatory, but it doesn’t have to be boring. By providing your staff with relevant, personalized content along with the basics, you will build an environment to keep your top talent learning, growing, and engaged.
In case you need to produce some killer employee engagement videos, contact us at F.Learning Studio.
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Sean Bui
F. Learning Studio's Author
Sean Bui, the founder and creative director of F.Learning Studio, is a respected leader in the e-learning and multimedia production industry. With over 10 years of experience, he has dedicated his career to helping organizations create engaging and impactful learning experiences. Under his leadership, F.Learning Studio has grown into a trusted partner for organizations in the education, healthcare, and corporate training sectors, producing over 2,000 minutes of educational animation.
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