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How to Use Video To Improve the Employee Onboarding Process
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As a hiring manager, you need to use video to supplement and enhance your hiring and onboarding process.
According to comScore, U.S. Internet users watched an all-time high 37.7 billion online videos in August. The way people are gaining and absorbing information is changing, and your organization can take advantage of this trend and utilize on-demand video to improve overall operations, particularly when it comes to employee onboarding.
There are many benefits of using video in the onboarding process. Most importantly, on-demand video frees up HR resources by reducing the number of live sessions given each week, which can be time-consuming.
Video can also provide all employees with consistent messaging and can include speakers who may not normally be available, such as the CEO or a member of senior management addressing new hires. Finally, video allows employees to easily revisit portions of the onboarding content if they forget or if they need to clarify information.
What are some key ways managers can use video to improve the onboarding process? Here are some suggestions:
Videos don’t always have to be a sequence of recorded images. They can also include accompanying materials that add value to your video content. Managers can include links to documents, PDFs, or PowerPoint decks that are important in the onboarding process.
For example, if a new hire needs further clarification on the company’s 401 (k) program, a linked document or PowerPoint presentation within the video can help them understand this program without having to ask a supervisor or HR manager. Accompanying materials may reduce the amount of questions and requests for material that HR receives concerning the onboarding process.
When videos have collaboration features, recent hires can easily communicate with HR to ask questions about the onboarding content. For example, features such as a threaded Q&A integrated into the video streamline the onboarding process since workers are able to pose questions about the onboarding process.
One of the criticisms of using on-demand video is the lack of an instructor to answer questions that the viewers pose. However, if your video platform provides these capabilities, the viewers will be able to post questions about the content and receive responses. The added benefit of this process is that the Q&A can remain so that the next viewer will be able to view both the content and the Q&A, giving them more insight into the material.
Sometimes, employees may need to go back to videos in order to re-learn or clarify company practices. However, many older onboarding videos aren’t indexed and can be too long, making it hard for employees to find and review specific points.
To solve this, HR managers should host their onboarding videos on a platform with indexing and search capabilities. By adding indexing features such as meta tag descriptions and chapters, employees can easily search by keyword or topic and find the section of the video they want to revisit.
There’s little point in providing an employee a manual or onboarding video if it is old and outdated. Not only does this fail to improve the onboarding process, it also makes organizations and its practices look dated.
Of course, updating video content does take time and resources. However, videos do not have to be completely reproduced just because a change occurs at the company. Look for a video platform that allows content creators to easily update video and the synchronized presentations. Content creators can swap out the outdated section of the video or include new accompanying materials to keep video content in line with current company policies or practices.
Using video for employee onboarding not only saves time and reduces the resources required to deliver these important programs, but it also streamlines the learning process for new workers, no matter what industry you are in. But not all video platforms are created equal, so look for one that provides you with these recommended capabilities.
What do you think? What are some other ways to use video to improve employee onboarding?