If you work in Human Resources or corporate training, consider the number of hours you dedicate to onboarding, mandatory health and safety training, certifying and educating your employees. While these are no doubt worthwhile and sometimes necessary components of hiring and maintaining your workforce, there’s no denying their strain on resources, time and budgets.
If you’ve never considered how video can support your efforts, continue reading. We’re outlining the top 5 reasons to turn to animated videos for your corporate training needs.
Consistency is Key
If you’re a frequent follower of our blog, you’ll notice that we’re pretty consistent about underscoring consistency as it relates to your message, brand and presentation. How’s that for practising what we preach? Consistency is key and delivering the same message verbally during training sessions time and again is not only monotonous but leaves a large margin for error. How can you be sure that your training modules are delivered to the same standards each time and that they’re consistent? Better yet, how can you be sure that your message is being received the way it is intended? Consistency is also key with many aspects of video production and we appreciate its value in your line of work as well.
Converting your training sessions to video ensures that the tone, emphasis and delivery is presented consistently to every member of your organization. This takes human error out of the equation and in turn frees up the trainer’s time for other valuable tasks.
As for viewer retention and conveying your message the way it is intended, there are a few methods that keep viewers and learners engaged in training videos. One method is a choose-your-own-adventure style video. We’ve created videos for clients using this model and the resounding feedback is that it captures and maintains viewer engagement in a way that they haven’t previously been able to do. Prompting employee tests and quizzes following the completion of training modules via video is a great way to verify that your message is being received and the knowledge is being retained.
Time is Money
The beauty about video training is its accessibility; it can be consumed at the viewers’ leisure and not at one fixed time. That, coupled with the fact that people are more likely to spend time watching a video than reading a document or email makes video training a compelling solution.
If you think about time as the only non-renewable resource in business, it’s crucial that yours is spent wisely. How many days have you spent running from one meeting to another only to get back to your desk with no time left in the day to execute the action items tasked in your meetings? Conversely, when was the last time you felt adequately prepared for a days’ worth of meetings? Reducing your time spent in training sessions affects the bottom line of your company. It also gets you out of the boardroom and back at your desk, while reducing the need for resources like meeting rooms, scheduling tools and more.
When you think about time as a form of currency, it forces you to assess how you’re spending it. Videos are an effective way to trim your time budget when it comes to training.
A Picture Says a Thousand Words
…and sometimes it says the things that can’t be easily spoken or visually demonstrated. When conducting certain types of training that deal with matters of a sensitive nature (e.g., cultural sensitivity or equality in the workplace training) or safety regulations / requirements, animated videos often deliver the job more effectively than people. It’s much easier to convey a right vs wrong scenario or safe vs unsafe using animation and illustrations, than with live action video, still photos or verbally in person. These slides work well with the aforementioned choose-your-own-adventure style of training videos and are impactful when demonstrating a high risk scenario.
Here at Switch, we create illustrations with a purpose that are scientifically designed to enhance the viewer’s retention of information. We’ve mentioned it before but a stat this staggering is worth repeating: people retain 10% of what they read or hear versus 58% of what they see and hear. That means no more nodding off in the back of the boardroom during the next training session!
Measure and Monitor
Many LMS’s (Learning Management System) incorporate tools to measure and monitor your participants’ progress, completion rates and more. Most also offer a solution to gauge the learners’ comprehension, such as quizzes or tests. Distribution of explainer videos via an LMS simplifies the training process and provides insights into how your content is being consumed. Regular evaluation of these metrics can help you make data-driven decisions to change or enhance parts of your training program.
Globally Speaking
Replacing your traditional training methods with explainer videos gives you the ability to cross borders and barriers more easily. This is especially valuable for global organizations that want to deliver the same standard of training company-wide. By utilizing universal iconography and generic characters in your videos, your message can be translated more easily worldwide. Our work with UNESCO on their CSE (Comprehensive Sexual Education) is an example of how we utilized characters that were racially neutral, allowing them to connect with audiences globally.
The voiceovers in our videos can also be readily translated into any language, including region-specific dialects and accents. To date, we’ve worked with voiceover talent in 20 languages and have provided multiple versions of the same video in varying languages for many of our clients.
Developing skills and increasing productivity through corporate training is essential to the success of any organization. How you foster that growth and nurture professional development is vital to your bottom line. If this entry has you reflecting on the pain points of your current training programs and processes, we’d love to continue the conversation. Animated videos are a cost-effective and time efficient way to alleviate your pain points and elevate your corporate training. Connect with us to discuss; we’d love to learn more about how you’re teaching educating and training your employees and how we can assist.
