Employee training is both the great panacea and the scapegoat for underperformance and workplace problems like harassment, bullying and incivility. When training programs are well crafted, they do much more than give employees the basic tools to succeed at your company: they foster better teamwork, build relationships and create opportunities for employees to go above and beyond. But when employee training programs aren’t adopted by everyone due to access problems, when they don’t address new employee concerns, or when they fail to deliver the tools for success, the results on any business can be disastrous.
Video communications programs have long been known to improve employee engagement and employee program adoption, both for training programs and benefits packages. By utilizing a video communications platform that puts company and HR managers in charge of content and accessibility, companies can train their employees and thrive.
Video Employee Training Programs
We all saw goony training videos when we started our first summer job. We likely scoffed at them then, but they usually provided the information we needed to safely stock shelves or flip burger patties. Today, video communications have gotten more complex than the standard company DVD (or, God forbid, VHS). Use of the cloud and local intranet systems to house employee videos are now the preferred ways to share training and orientation information with new employees.
The reason we had to sit through those grainy training videos is because video transfers standardized information to many people quickly and efficiently. As an employer, you have great control over the accessibility of vital information, how you present it, and the content comprising the information itself. You can effectively distribute all three in any employee-training program when you use video. Avoid mass confusion, minimize mismatched signals and messages, and curb frustration by building the perfect employee-training video. It’s why video communication is so vital: it puts you in the driver’s seat.
Beyond controlling the content, video is flexible and adaptable to a variety of learning styles and speeds. Rather than a training session that moves at the pace of the slowest trainee, video allows workers to review difficult areas as many times as they need without holding their colleagues back or forcing them to move faster than they can process the information.
Where Employee Training Can Go Wrong
You know by now that you have to be careful with your messaging in any training program. Depending on the training subject, your whole staff, at one point or another, could be given the same training video. For instance, code of conduct and inclusion training apply to all departments and pay grades. You have to get it right: no vital information missed, no confusing messages, and no room for ambiguity when it comes to compliance.
Training programs can also go wrong when unforeseen issues arise. With some experience, you or your human resources department can anticipate issues and questions workers might have about the training and onboarding systems. But training can be undermined when employees need personalized assistance. In this case, everyone working with your employees also needs to be trained to handle issues as they come up. Trainers need to know when to go up the chain of command for help and when to be autonomous. They need to be empowered to guide employees through training and orientation.
Synergy
With employee advisers and trainers ready to supplement a thoughtful video training program, you can’t go wrong. Your employees get a mix of digestible information and personalized attention from their first day at your organization.
