You know what they say about first impressions: they last forever, and the best way to make a lasting impression on your new hires is to use an onboarding video.
Video aside, the onboarding process, in general, can make or break your business. Well-executed onboarding can boost employee retention by 88% and increase productivity by 70%. It also leads to higher job satisfaction.
Video is cost-effective and has a high engagement factor, which is why most businesses use it as an onboarding tool. But smart onboarding needs more than a video; it needs creativity.
More reasons why video is an effective onboarding tool:
- You get to show rather than tell your story to prospective employees
- Video speeds up the onboarding process.
With a library of onboarding videos, there is no need for managers to spend time giving new hires basis training. Traditionally, onboarding was left to the human resource manager, but modern onboarding has evolved to become a dynamic process. 69 percent of new hires are likely to remain with a company for up to three years depending on the success of the onboarding process.
- Apart from saving costs and time, video onboarding gives employees the freedom to learn at their own pace.
But if you prefer to watch a video instead, click here:
Three Employee Onboarding Videos You Can Learn From
1. Google Intern’s first week.
Consider the perspective of the new hires, better yet, remember your first day at work. The experience of joining a new company can be nerve-wracking, especially for interns and first-time employees.
This is what you can learn from this video:
New hires can relate to this video. It makes the onboarding process easier and more natural, particularly to employees who feel overwhelmed by the magnitude of the company.
Welcome to the company
It helps new hires feel at home when a company is warm and welcoming. Use the onboarding video as a tool to showcase the company culture.
What to expect on the first day
This video shares the stories of 5 summer interns and what their first day at work was like, down to the projects they worked on.
2. Zendesk Onboarding Video
https://youtu.be/l0uaSU6IVN4
The Zendesk onboarding video is simple and straight forward. It shows the company culture, core values, the employees, and it tells new hires what to expect.
Make them feel like part of the team
Whether you are onboarding remote or non-remote employees, its important to establish an emotional connection.
Sometimes all it takes is a glance into the ins and outs of your company. Use the onboarding video to inform new hires of how the will fit into your brand.
3. Hubspot Onboarding Video
The Hubspot onboarding video is both entertaining and informative.
Just tell your story
You don’t have to use actual characters in your onboarding video (more on this later). This is your chance to be creative and come up with something that is unique to your company.
What to Include in an Employee Onboarding Video
There is so much you can teach your new hires about your company, and there is a lot you can learn about them as well. Onboarding doesn’t have specific guidelines, the process simply needs to be informative, engaging, and accessible.
Company Culture
New hires are keen to learn about the company’s culture, so, ingraining it in the onboarding video is crucial. In this video, therefore, you might want to include the following;
1. Convey Company Purpose
Communicate a general company introduction; its history, the industry, mission, vision, and values. A broad sense of the company’s goals and the new hire’s own-role specific goals will help set the tone for the employee’s tenure. Remember, the aim is to create a good feeling that will make the new hire feel comfortable and excited to be part and parcel of the company. So, you have to be unique and creative without necessarily giving too much irrelevant information.
2. Introduce the Current Staff
Since work relations matter, you can pre-produce videos that introduce the company executives as well as familiarize the new hires with senior-level management.
People like responding to real people.
Ensure your narration is not dry and dull; injecting some humor will make the introductions livelier.
3. Highlight Onboarding Goals
Companies often set goals and expectations from all their employees, and new hires are no exception.
Onboarding videos are useful in outlining a onboarding checklist of attainable goals for specific job functions. Since the videos are a permanent resource, new hires can watch, rewatch, or print their goals for reference throughout the onboarding process.
Setting immediate, reasonably challenging development goals will give employees small wins which they can build on. The onboarding manager can also evaluate if the set goals meet the company’s expectations at the end of the onboarding period.
Training
1. Industry Training
New hires are always eager to learn; mandatory training in the first month of onboarding is essential.
Building a variety of industry-specific topic training videos will ensure that new employees are inspired and motivated to work with the rest of the team to achieve success. It will be beneficial to create instructional videos on how-to content since many people learn better by being shown how to do something. Guiding employees in a step- by step manner using a friendly narration running in the background will also produce good results.
Chances are that new hires will find it far much more comfortable to view a digital clip that breaks down complicated topics with visuals than having to flip through the pages of a gigantic paper handbook.
2. Teach a New Skill
Some training may seem unnecessary at the beginning but can still help add value to new hires’ performance. Using videos, you can make the complex, role-specific tasks more understandable by using texts, characters, images, and movements.
Also, using animations to bring different maneuvers to life makes information more digestible.
Transfer of new skills to new hires will also give them confidence and increase knowledge to execute their roles during and after the onboarding process.
3. Introduce a department
If you’re a small company, it is easy to introduce new employees to their entire departments. However, it may not be the case with medium-to-large companies.
A short and sweet welcome video, in this case, will suffice.
In the video, you can feature department team members introducing themselves and talking about their experiences and practices at work. Watching these department clips will make new hires feel more relevant and less afraid.
If, for example, a new employee does not get the chance for a face to face handover from the person who previously did their job, a video from the member leaving will help explain the details of the job functions.
Progress Check
1. Acknowledge new hires’ growth
Since your company has set achievable onboarding goals based on the job functions of new hires, it will be a great motivation to celebrate their success.
The ideal tool to use for progress recognition is an onboarding success video. You can share the video with the new hire’s specific department to make them feel appreciated.
2. Create a reference resource
All employee onboarding videos are essential and can be used at a later date by new staff to refresh their knowledge of various company issues and skills. You can create accessible storage such as a website landing page or a shared cloud folder where all employees can retrieve and view the videos at their convenience.
Types of Onboarding Videos
Onboarding is all about introducing new hires to your company in a way that both represents you and engages them.
A Day in the Life of
This type of onboarding video is great for showing employees how they fit into the company structure.
New hires can learn about their roles and responsibilities all in one video. A day in the life of an intern, a day in the life of a sales agent, and so on.
Employees will need specific onboarding videos depending on their roles, so if making multiple hires, ensure each employee has a unique onboarding process that meets their needs.
Aside from highlighting the dynamics of the business, this type of video can also showcase the relationships between different departments in the company. In as much as each employee has unique needs, it’s important to make them feel connected to the rest of the company.
Company Biography
There is no better way to connect to new employees than to tell your story. Get the CEO or another key personality in the company to narrate the organizational culture to new hires.
Interactive Onboarding Videos
Interactive videos are the future.
Apart from giving learners control over the information they consume, these videos lead to higher information retention.
With interactive onboarding, new hires can participate in the process instead of being receivers. The videos will allow employees to type, click, and scroll. The company can learn about their hires as the employees learn about the company.
Tutorials
Come up with creative how-to videos to teach employees how to navigate within the company. Your managers can create videos demonstrating how to use software and other relevant instructions.
These videos don’t have to be limited to the technical processes of the company. Cover all the basics so that new hires will always have a place to refer when they need to. How to use the internal phone system, how to file a complaint, how to schedule a conference meeting.
Situational Videos
This type of onboarding video is important for showing employees how to handle specific situations. You can teach them how to handle office disputes, how to interact with customers.
Usually, current employees (or hired actors) will act out a situation, demonstrating to the viewers how they should handle the problem at hand.
The Dos and Donts of Employee Onboarding
Do Cover Everything in the Onboarding Video
Smart onboarding covers everything: the company origin, culture, mission, vision, values, and even the perspective of the employees. Let the new hires know the perks and challenges of working in your company. Tell them what you are all about. A good onboarding video improves employee loyalty to the company.
Don’t flood new hires with a lot of information all at once.
Onboarding can’t be done in a day. In fact, the process can (and should) continue for as long as 90 days. It takes time to integrate new employees into a company, never underestimate this.
Do Play Appropriate Music for the onboarding video
An onboarding video needs to engage your employees.
Think about the atmosphere in your workplace. Is it formal, friendly, casual? Choose the background music of your onboarding videos based on this.
Also, consider that upbeat and happy music can make the employee onboarding process more engaging.
Before Ending the Onboarding Process
Reviewing progress after training employees in a comprehensive onboarding process is essential.
It is now time to test if they can apply the new skills in their job tasks.
Without close supervision, business owners can only hope that new employees will perform tasks efficiently, and to the company’s expectations.
Quiz the Training Process
To ensure that the employees have grasped their roles, you can encourage them to create their videos explaining their work processes. These videos will act as an evaluation method on how well employees followed the onboarding process. At the same time, if the videos meet the company’s expected standards, they can be used for new employees’ onboarding process in the future.
Employee feedback is essential.
Upon completion of the onboarding process, request your new staff to fill in a questionnaire anonymously about the process. The onboarding manager’s feedback can also be of help in comparing the group’s experience and plan for improvements.
New staff who have gone through an onboarding process are likely to perform better, meet their targets and goals than those who don’t. It is, therefore, vital to focus on building a successful onboarding program.
Creating the videos may not be easy, but with training, it is possible to create awesome ones. You also have a choice to hire communication professionals who are available to develop engaging and exciting employee onboarding videos for your new hires.
Looking for a freelance video editor? Here’s how to find the best one.
All the best!
