Global hiring is gaining popularity with the advent of sophisticated digital communication technologies. With that comes the need to use videos for employee onboarding.
Many companies have crossed the threshold of effective onboarding. However, for many other organizations, this is an arena that they have never ventured into. Getting used to making effective onboarding videos comes with practice. But it is a skill easy to master.
Effective onboarding
When employee onboarding is structured using video emails, it breaks the monotonous nature of the process where you have a talking head, and everybody else listens.
It is also more effective in terms of putting up a professional front for the new employees.
The effectiveness of videos for onboarding is also manifested in the following ways:
- Speeds the process, especially when there is information overload.
- A cost-effective way to train employees yields a higher return on investment.
- Ability to view back video training on-demand and learn at their pace.
- Easier to remotely onboard teams who live in various parts.
- Nuances lost in documentation can be easily captured in videos.
- The step-by-step onboarding process is explained better.
- Show off your office, featuring team camaraderie and unique spaces.
Make sure to include short videos of every aspect of the company you want to convey to the employees, such as culture, premises, technology, training, and perks. That way, they stay inspired and motivated to join the company. It will help them develop a strong connection with their roles within the company.
Visually appealing demonstration
Onboarding team members can be chaotic in the initial few weeks. Getting them introduced to other old employees can take a major part of the process. Then comes the hardest part, which is training them. The training process can be streamlined using video emails followed by a simple exam to test them.
Video emails make employee onboarding more personalized and engaging, especially for remote workers. This form of communication is a great way to describe a checklist of issues, such as corporate security and technical rules to new hires. Video is a perfect medium for explaining how to prevent phishing attacks and data breaches. It is also useful in demonstrating how to protect your computer from cybersecurity threats or in IT disaster recovery training.
Video training usually takes anywhere between several weeks to a couple of months until the employees feel comfortable operating the new software. But providing them with instructional videos is a much faster process than providing them with static manuals.
Implementing video emails to the onboarding training process is a powerful way to connect with the employees. The visually appealing demonstration means the new members can always have access to a rich knowledge base. With video email techniques, you can provide the rich onboarding experience your team needs.
Augment with subtitles
Add subtitles to all your videos for a more user-friendly and engaging experience. If you are wondering how to write and add subtitles, you can either type them manually or auto-generate them using the software. Or, you have the option to upload a file with subtitles. Either way, you can edit the subtitles once they are added to the videos.
Adding subtitles means the viewers can watch the training process even while they are on mute or when the sound is off. This way of training is especially helpful for employees who are deaf. Certain industry-specific phrases or words can be easily captured with video subtitles as opposed to when you hear someone say them.
Adding subtitles creates another element beyond the sound and image. With the text element added to the image and sound, your multimedia visual can be more engaging. Moreover, when the video goes to their knowledge base, it becomes easier for the employees to search for it using text.
If you have remote employees from other parts of the world whose mother tongue is not English, you can translate the text into different languages with a click. The text can be translated into more than 100 languages using the software. All you do is select the language, and the subtitles will be automatically translated.
Video making tips
- At the start of the onboarding process, show them a video clip of the CEO of the company warmly welcoming new employees onboard.
- Organize your video series by making notes detailing the points you are going to convey. Then build the video content consistent with the topics in your notes.
- Avoid treating video instructions as the end-all and be-all. In other words, highlight additional resources to help them continue the onboarding process,
- If the recruits are replacing people who are leaving, including a video of the departing employee explaining how things are done so they can get up to speed,
- If you have interns at your company, you can ask anyone of them to make a short video to explain what they enjoyed the most working in the company,
- Include a video snippet of a senior employee telling the story of how they efficiently handled a commonly occurring problem in the company,
- At the end of the video, clearly instruct them to take an action that would help them make the onboarding process much easier for them,
Tells a story
Storytelling captures the imagination and attention of an audience like nothing else does. Simply put, video emails used for the onboarding process can tell employees using moving pictures what it entails to be working in the new office. The settings can also give the recruits a sense of the corporate culture they would be walking into.
Stories through video can prepare employees for animated discussions and healthy debates, which is part of an effective team-building process. Impactful stories make them understand what their future work life will be like and help them prepare. They can be used as a precursor to an insightful question-and-answer session.
A company needs stories to stand out from the rest in today’s noisy landscape because they elicit emotions. They can build trust and a personal connection with the brand. Stories can also break down complex information about the onboarding materials into chewable chunks. Therefore, video stories are highly persuasive.
When making video stories, make them short, so you capture the full attention span of the employees. Otherwise, it is easy to lose their attention. At the end of the video, provide some insightful thoughts that can make them ask questions. This way of using video stories can increase the engagement of the viewers.
Make authentic videos
Avoid making overly scripted videos because they look unauthentic. Instead, create videos that are conversational and relatable that burst out your unique identity. Add relevant visuals in the background to enhance the authenticity of the onboarding video. Let employees know about your company on a personal level. Here are many other ways to heighten the human touch.
- Embrace your fashion style in the video when you are addressing the new employees. For example, wear your favorite piece of clothing in which you feel comfortable in your skin. Or if jeans are not your style, avoid wearing them.
- Present yourself genuinely, whether that be formally or informally, so you feel confident. For example, there is no need to shave your beard if you are mostly seen by people with your beard on.
- Use trendy viral content for your videos that you think new employees will enjoy watching. You can even use it to break the ice. But use such videos only if they are relevant or beneficial. Otherwise, it may come across as inauthentic.
- Do not feel pressured to include jokes in your video that are a carbon copy from another video. It may not work. But if this is your normal style and you have experience doing it, go ahead and make puns. It may make you look genuine.
- Sound as if you are having a nice conversation as opposed to reading off a script. You can keep notes handy, but only to make sure you keep on track and do not lose your train of thought.
- Do not record the video until and unless you are comfortable talking to the camera. When you are uncomfortable in a video, viewers have an uncanny ability to sense it.
Conclusion
Using videos is a novel way of employee onboarding but is also very effective, which is why companies use them. Videos allow employers to share information engagingly and dynamically. It is a creative solution for providing training to the recruits to ramp up and get up to speed quickly.
