Keeping your staff trained can be a very demanding thing. Whether it is a new piece of software you are rolling out or some new equipment, or training on a new policy, finding the resources to do it and then scheduling training for everyone who needs it can be a mammoth project. Even for a relatively small business, it will result in a costly lack of productivity while everybody sits through the training and picks up the new skills, and then of course there are the logistical demands of finding a place suitable to deliver it all.
If you have a training need in your company, there is often a lot to be gained by producing a training video instead of delivering training in the usual, classroom style way. Here are some of the benefits to making a video to fill your training gap:
You Can Outsource Production
Even if the training is very specific to your company, there is no reason why you can’t hire a video production company to make it for you. This means that you don’t need to tie up your own resources more than necessary to get the training done. You can meet with a production company, explain your requirements and review and approve the script using far less of your own people’s time than devising a classroom training course, sorting out the logistics and scheduling and having one of your own people deliver it. Professional video production may not be as expensive as you might think, and if you balance out the cost in terms of man hours saved you will find it to be very cost effective if your demands aren’t too complex.
You Can Let Staff View It However They Want To
Some people learn faster than others, and by making the video available and mandatory, you can let people watch it more than once if they don’t pick up on the details the first time. This makes things a lot less stressful for staff who find it hard to keep up in classroom training courses and worry they won’t come away with enough knowledge, and will make it less frustrating for fast learners or those already familiar with the content as they won’t be held back by others asking for things to be explained again.
No Logistical Issues!
Simply tell staff that they have to watch the video at least once within a certain time frame and let them fit it into their own working day, at their own desks! No finding times that suit different groups, no looking for suitable meeting rooms that are free, and no breaking up people’s flow of work and reducing productivity. If you are worried about verifying that everyone actually has watched the video, there are ways of checking this when it is posted on your intranet. You can even have someone in your web team create a quick quiz people have to fill out at the end to prove they have learned the salient points from the film.
Corporate video production for training can be a real time and money saver, and can also be more appealing to trainees, so next time you are faced with a training need, consider it as an alternative to a major program of classroom sessions!
About the Author: Phil Raymonds, an online marketing professional, prefers using the latest software and medium to get his ideas across. He is passionate about video photography and editing.
