When enterprises started using video for training purposes, sometime in the early 1980s, it must have seemed impressive. After all, a company went to significant expense to produce a video with advanced technology, then bought VCRs to play these productions for employees. The future had arrived.
Of course, corporate training videos had drawbacks, too—lack of portability, the space required to store dozens of video tapes, the aforementioned expense, and so on. DVDs and more advanced technology streamlined some of this, but the use of video as a training tool was still occasionally unwieldy. Then, everything went digital. Corporate training videos didn’t need expensive, barely mobile hardware—they could be watched on a computer, tablet, or smartphone. And just about every device had the capability to shoot video; any average user could produce content of surprising quality. The training potential of this video revolution is just being realized.
Today’s software solutions are employing corporate training videos to a level that might not have seemed possible just five years ago. The impact of such content can be strong, as the visual medium catches workers’ attention in a way other training methods simply can’t. Here are some ways to measure the effectiveness of corporate training videos:
Time to Train
When new hires are first learning their jobs, or when experienced employees are instituting a new process or procedure, some amount of time is inevitably required for training. Written materials take time to read and, frankly, can be rather boring—workers may have to go back over key paragraphs just to make sure they are fully understanding what they must learn. Corporate training videos can remove much of the tedium and more directly get a point across. The switch to video content should reduce the time necessary to train recent hires and veteran workers alike. After all, watching a five-minute video once or twice is a much faster approach than reading a 25-page instruction manual until it’s fully comprehended. The former method feels like watching TV; the latter like doing homework. Which do you think will resonate more with employees?
Employee Feedback
The amount and nature of comments and questions you receive from employees may change with corporate training videos. Yes, you want workers to offer feedback on the training content they watch (and with tablet-based solutions, leaving that feedback is easier than ever). However, if a video is informative and clear, employees won’t be asking as many questions—their learning will be so effective that they will understand after one or two viewings. You will see fewer “I don’t get it” comments and more “I have some ideas on how to make this process better” messages.
Productivity
Productivity is an obvious indicator of the impact of corporate training videos. If a process that was previously taught by other methods is showing better results after switching to video training, you likely can point to the revamped content as the reason. And if an employee is watching a video on a tablet, he or she is likely learning at a specific location where the training is germane (as opposed to a back office watching a DVD on a television). The worker can pause, rewind, and fast forward the video as needed en route to developing the best grasp of the content possible. And the quicker that proficiency is reached, the more productivity will occur.
How effectively does your company utilize corporate training videos?
