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Think training videos are all about bad hair and music?

Find out the science behind why training videos are so effective and why every company needs to use them in workplace training.

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1. Match the visuals, titles and voiceover – This is a common mistake of amateurs.  Sadly, even  some experienced editors have difficulty with this one.  This is one of the reasons why training videos are so powerful, but so many production houses get it wrong.  Remember, don’t skimp on editing time.  It is worth the time and effort to use lots of titles and to match the vision accurately.

2. Focus the training video on instructional design principles. Producing a training video is more than just editing and filming.  The script must be written in a way so as to enhance learning.  Avoid working with directors whose main desire is to be a Hollywood producer.  While you are getting a training video made, remember it is just another communication tool like a poster  magazine ad.  It is not about amazing pictures with  stereophonic sound.  How it is put together is a necessary requirement, but it is the instructional design principles behind it that make all the difference.

3. Entertaining videos usually don’t work.  Avoid effects that do not add to communicating your message.  Do you really need the paint splash effect title when your company has nothing to do with paint?

4. Change what’s on screen every 5-7 seconds. Use a variety of communication methods – titles, different voiceovers, numerous camera perspectives  and a change in music.  Keep people engaged.

5. Show people as much as you can. People like looking at people. Again, amateurs don’t get this key principle.  I have seen amateur videos where a blank wall has been an unnecessary feature point while the narrator rambled on.  No joke.

6. Linear sequence (Step 1, Step 2 etc) avoid Step 2, Step 1, Step 2, Step 3, Step 5 etc).  Our conscious brain absorbs information in a linear fashion.  Information must always be given from start to end with no confusing jumping back and forth.  With any type of training the structure is crucial to success.  This is the same with an educational video.   In a video, it can be quite boring and annoying to see things twice or in the wrong order.  Makes it difficult to understand.

7. Script - This is crucial.  It must be friendly and  conversational.  Use short words and sentences.  This is not a time to make out your clever because you know some big words.   And don’t get lazy and refer people to a book (yes, some training videos do that!)

8. Segregate the training video into chapters and make these clear. Just like a book, structure the training video into a range of titles and subtitles and make these easy to skip to.  By using titles in the video on the next topic, it helps to focus viewers on what they are going to learn next.

Training videos are an incredibly effective method of training people quickly and thoroughly.  More importantly, they help viewers to retain the information much more than if they were to read the information or even hear it.  But they have to be made right.  By spring boarding off what makes training videos so great and including these components in you training video, you’ll get fantastic training outcomes.

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Companies often tell us that they are frustrated by how hard it is to engage staff with training.

After a bit of digging, we usually find out that training consists of:

1. A trainer talking a lot,
2. Some trainer made PowerPoint slides (learn how to improve your training presentations here) that generally consists of lots of words, or
3. A black and white manual that staff are expected to read.

What research has found is that is that passive/low engagement training is ineffective compared to active/high engagement training.   Passive training is when you get a trainer or lecturer telling lots of information or when lots of reading is involved.

So any training that is designed around a trainer reading through slides is not enough to create engagement.  Nor is producing a training manual and expecting workers to read it.

The Most Effective Training Materials

Educational researchers have found that 83% of human learning occurs visually.  The right brain prefers visuals and can process pictures hundreds of times faster than words.

When it comes to producing training materials, it’s a good idea to use as many visuals as you can.  And to really increase engagement, try and get trainees to touch, see and hear (obviously, taste and smell aren’t suitable to all industries, but they work especially well in food).  Use as many of the senses as you can during training.

And while having a trainer talking at students is passive training including lots of “Show and Tell” or demonstrations takes the training to a new level.  This is where the trainer demonstrates a process and gets the trainee to have a go.  This is integral to an active learning style.  Coaching is then given to improve.  Which brings us to assessment, which is also really important with learning.  It is important that trainees get face to face feedback on how to improve rather than information from a computer.

A Checklist for Creating Effective Training Materials

Several research studies have found that learners more easily understand and recall new material presented in video that allow participants to both hear and see the information.

This dual-encoding process reinforces information in multiple brain areas, thereby increasing the chances that the material will be stored in long-term memory.

To make use of this powerful memory booster, training materials need to be centred around a visually appealing training video.  By getting learners to see, listen and read important information you start getting higher levels of recall than just reading alone.  After all,  we remember 10% of what we read, 20% of what we hear and 30% of what we see, so by addressing these three areas, recall is increased to 60% v 10% for reading alone.

But just having a training video is not enough.  Another important addition to your training kit is the Trainer’s Manual.  This guide needs to help the trainer know the best method to teach the material.  It needs to include a trainer’s session schedule that has advice on what segments of the training video to play, what questions to discuss, when to do a demonstration, when to get trainees to have a go, when to pass around relevant items and the questions and answers for the quiz (and how to test respondents and discuss the answers).

In addition, to really keep trainees engaged and to help them believe that the training is important, each trainee needs to receive their own copy of an Employee Handbook.  This is the document that they go through in class, it needs to have information on how to undertake tasks, as well as photos that will remind them of the training video that they have seen.  The booklet needs to also contain their quiz with space for them to write in their answers  (also gives them ownership rights).

By using these three main training materials, you end up with a self-contained training package that gives trainers the resources and support that they need to create an interactive and high engagement training session.  It will also ensure that training is taught consistently across numerous locations.

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Here are  some of the most common questions we get asked when companies are considering putting together a company training video.

1. Should our staff feature in our training video or do we need actors?

Human beings love looking at people.  Especially people that they know.

When it comes to producing a training video for you staff, the more workers that you can have starring in the video the better.  Not only does this increase morale (preparing your company for filming increases excitement and camaraderie amongst colleagues), but staff will actually pay more attention to the video as they watch their own workplace buddies on screen.

The downsides with using professional actors are that they do not know procedures often resulting in an unbelievable performance.  Staff are also more likely to deride their performance of an ‘outsider’.  They’re also expensive to use.

Paid actors can be important for more emotional, juicy roles.  For example, for a recent training video project we needed to film an elite athlete with an illicit drug problem talking to a psychologist.  As the acting was important and needed to be real, in order to train psychologists, professional actors were used.

However, for procedural based training videos, it is always best to feature your own staff.

2. We think only half a day of filming is needed to make a 20 minute training video.  What do you think?

Filming is integral to ensuring there is clear communication on how to undertake a task.  It’s a mistake to think that just because a procedure takes three minutes it will take three minute to film.

This is because lighting needs to be set up, the camera needs to be put in the right place and then the shot needs to be checked for accuracy.

Also, filming the procedure from the one angle results in a boring training video and also one that does not convey your information clearly.  Often, we film a procedure from three different angles (includes a close up, mid shot, and wide shot) to really explain how a process is undertaken.  This means the actor has to undertake the procedure three times.

Often, this can take time as you need to make sure that each shot is consistent and can be edited together.  For example, if you are filming a person washing their hands and the mid shot has them wearing a jumper, while the close up has them without a jumper, the video is going to be pretty confusing.

Also, filming can be halted due to too much noise, sun coming in and out or because an intruder  ‘accidentally’ appears in the shot.

So the answer is filming always takes longer than real time.  As a rule of thumb, a 20 minute video generally needs about three full days of filming.

3. We’ve heard that it’s a good idea to put video content up on YouTube.  We’d like our training video available for everyone on YouTube.

YouTube is a public place to view video content.  A company training video is a private affair and should only be available to your staff.

YouTube is great for marketing purposes, so if your training video is to help customers, then it is a good idea to put your video on YouTube.

However, YouTube only accepts videos that are less than 10 minutes long.   So you need to make sure your customer training video is short.   It also  re-compresses videos, so if your video quality isn’t great to begin with, it certainly won’t look any better on YouTube.  A good question to consider is whetheryou believe a poor quality video will affect you brand.

Other video streaming providers should be considered to ensure that high quality video is streamed and to have the ability to allow only certain viewers to watch the video.

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For those of you who are starting to review your 2011 training programs, it’s time to take a look at what some of the experts are touting as the learning trends for 2011.

1. E-books

With the launch of the iPad and the general improvement in electronic readers, the digital publishing industry is thriving.  It’s only a matter of time before training manuals are no longer printed.  Instead, it is expected that this will be year when slowly, but surely, employees are more likely to be handed an iPad to access training materials.

One of the advantages is that digital readers that are connected to the internet will allow readers to click on hyperlinks to instantly access other sources of information, thereby providing a richer reading experience.

2. Social Learning

According to Phillip Tanzilo, social learning will be a trend for 2011.

Facebook has over 55o million subscribers and Twitter has 65 million daily tweets. While learning professionals are all using social media to chat to colleagues about training programs and to collaborate, it is unknown precisely how social learning will be developed to help with workplace training. It is expected that new services will be produced to make social learning easier and more accessible within companies.

As Daniel Pink wrote in The New Social Learning foreword, social learning will not replace training and employee development, “but it can accomplish what traditional approaches often cannot … [It] can supplement instruction with collaboration and co-creation, and in doing so, blur the boundary between the instructor and the instructed. … It can bring far-flung employees together into new communities in which they can not only learn from one another, but also fashion new offerings for customers. In short, social media can change the way your company works.”

3. Mobile Devices

With the growing popularity of iPhones and other smart phone devices, it is expected to only be a matter of time before training content is sent via mobile phones allowing mobile learning anyplace and anytime.  While not in the mainstream yet, it is expected to be a biggie for 2011.

4. Training Videos

After being involved with training videos for 10 years where it has only been used by predominantly large companies , training videos have now exploded to the point where it is expected to be an integral part of training in 2011.

And while back in the 1980′s a typical training video cost $2,000 a minute to make (20 minutes = $40,000) training videos are now more affordable for large and small companies alike.  It’s now half that and even less if you do it yourself.  The accessibility to small cameras and editing systems means that many companies are making training videos themselves (although, why inexperienced people would want to stuff around for weeks making one when they are paid to do what they are good at is another subject)!

Expect to see video content easily available on mobile content and e-readers this year, as well as being seen as a must-have training material rather than a nice to have.

What trends do you predict for 2011?  I’d love to hear your thoughts.

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We all remember as kids having to stand up in front of the classroom and do a “Show and Tell” session to the class about our newest toy.

While this might be a great skill to teach young kids, it’s also a great training technique for an adult class.

To improve the effectiveness of training, the more senses you can use, the more impact the communication will have.

That’s because we remember:

• 10% of what we read
• 20% of what we hear
• 30% of what we see
• 50% of what we both hear and see

So in any training situation, demonstrations or “show and tell” are integral to training success.  If we hear something, a day later we will remember 20% of what we heard.  And if we see something, we will remember 30%.  So add both audio and visual information together and 50% of what was communicated will be remembered.

That’s why training videos are so effective.  By showing (visuals) and telling (narrator), the viewer instantly knows what to do.  And if you add titles to reinforce (reading), you increase the effectiveness by another 10% to 60%.

As Kris Cole mentions in her book, “Crystal Clear Communication” you need to do show and tell, twice.  Once so people can  see what they need to do.  And the second time to help people to see exactly what happens or precisely how something works to determine exactly what is to be done.

How can you add more demonstrations to your training?

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It’s smart for companies to be worried about staff training videos and how to tackle them correctly.  There are so many choices.  Quite frequently, training videos are produced that just don’t get used.  Now, working out what components to include in your training video just got easier.

Melbourne, Australia (August 26, 2010) – Digicast Productions, a training video production house, today released the “Best Practice Guide: How to Produce Staff Training Videos that get Results”.   Developing the right training video for your company isn’t easy.   This guide is a useful resource for anyone involved in the challenging and complex task of producing a company training video that performs.
In this 4 page guide, discover:

• The key components required for the best induction training program
• The causes of a poor performing training video
• Issues to avoid during the production of a training video

This guide is suitable for anyone wishing to produce a company training video that will be used for many years.  It is a companion guide for the Training Video Buyer’s Kit.

For a complete copy of the kit, visit http://info.digicast.com.au/best-practice-guide-to-training-videos

About Digicast Productions

Established in 1991, Digicast is an Australian vendor of customised safety and induction training videos.  Thousands of people each year worldwide are trained with Digicast training videos. For more information, visit Digicast at www.digicast.com.au or The Workplace Improver blog for training tips.

Contact Marie-Claire Ross

Digicast Productions
+ 61 3 9696-4400
mc@digicast.com.au

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According to Wikipedia, advertising is a form of communication intended to persuade an audience  to purchase or take some action upon products, ideals, or services.  Advertising can change the values, attitudes, and actions of those who see or hear the message.

Think television commercials.  Advertising is a billion dollar industry focused on changing consumers’ habits and beliefs.   And while it is true that television might not be as effective as it used to be, this is only because fewer people are watching it now.  Nevertheless, Government organisations like WorkSafe and VicRoads have used television commercials to successfully change our behaviours and attitudes towards workplace safety and road safety respectively.

In order to market safety messages, it’s time that safety professionals started to think like marketers.  And this might be hard, as let’s face it, they are a strange group to more linear thinkers like engineers.  However, let’s put on our marketing caps and find out how they try to get into our brain.

Key advertising tactics to consider for marketing safety are:

• Consistent, clear messaging (includes branding) – Always promote the same standarized safety message and ensure that all departments are aligned with the message and do not send out conflicting information (eg: safety officer tells people to work safely and cautiously, but production manager pushes for speed).

• Consequences of poor safety – One of they key messages is to get employees really understand that poor safety behaviour puts their health and safety at risk, but also other employees, contractors and customers.  Let them know what effect this will have on the personal life and how it will effect their family.

• Multiple message placement – This means you have a consistent safety message or theme and you repeat it in multiple places.  It is like the glue that holds these tactics together and is essential in successful advertising.  In advertising campaigns, it is believed that people need to be exposed to a television ad six times before they will absorb the message.  This is why frequency of message equals success in the advertising campaign.

Most safety training programs fall short when it comes to frequency of message. Yet, there are many simple and cost effective ways to do this.

By getting workers to engage in your safety message in different ways (watching it, hearing it, reading it), supervisors can better ensure that more workers receive it.  Different communication methods include a training video that is supplemented with matching posters, email newsletter campaigns, key rings, employee handbooks and toolbox talks.

But how do you develop workplace safety communication?  Read How to Develop a Workplace Safety Messages Campaign (Part 2)

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Induction training is absolutely vital for new employees.   It is also the time when new starters are thirsty to know more about their new workplace and want to quickly integrate into their new team.   However, it can be difficult to know how well a new starter or contractor has absorbed training information.

Establish an induction training evaluation system

According to Joe Huang from Wondershare, makers of the Quiz Creator, as with any type of training, it is important to review and seek feedback before, after and during induction training.  The evaluation of induction training can be divided into three stages:

1. Evaluating new employees’ learning and academic performance. Before new employees start with you, you can quiz them on their knowledge.  This can be determined through examinations: paper-based tests are usually the most common way, but for the sake of time-saving and cost-effective, computer-based tests are the best choice.
2. Evaluating the appropriateness of the training course content.  For companies who are not sure about the content in their training and how new employees feel about it, you can quiz new starters to find out how they found the training and what they liked/disliked.  This is a great way to update your training in a meaningful way.
3. Evaluating the work performance of trainees.  After the newbie has started, you can quiz  supervisors on certain learning outcomes, to find out what they think of the performance of the new starter, so  you can know how the new employees took their training into practice.  This is also important information when reviewing your induction training and what areas need further improvement.

How quizzes can be used with induction training video for optimal results

Research has found that viewers of a training video score better on message retention and recall levels when they are told that they will be tested.
To use quizzes properly with a training video:

1. Quiz your learners before producing the training video. By finding out what information current staff have difficulty with, you will be more knowledgeable about the type of information to put into your training video.
2. Quiz your learners after (or during) the video training. This makes sure they have absorbed the information.
3. Use a quiz as a review tool. This is a great way to refresh staff.  Even if they only watch a small segment of an induction training video (for example: warm up exercises, by undertaking a small quiz on this topic, you know that they have learnt the information).

Now, while it is all well and good to test people during induction training, we hear from many companies that this sort of e-learning approach can be flawed.  All it takes is for a dodgy supervisor to hand people the answers and everyone passes through the quiz in flying colours.

That’s why it is important when testing people that if they get it wrong, they have to go back to that section and watch the video again.  Or alternatively, the questions are randomly displayed so that it makes cheating much harder.

According to Joe Huang, it is important to choose a quiz creating software that has anti-cheating features.  This includes a time limit (so that there is no time to research answers), randomization (questions occur in different order), access control (password only access to change the test) and a concealed XML file (this stops the answers from being viewed).

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