Using animated training videos is a great way to educate anyone across your entire organization. This is because of a simple psychological principle. Long term experimentation has shown that the retention of information that we come across follows the following pattern:
- 5% of a lecture is retained.
- 10% of what a person reads is retained.
- The mind retains-30% of graphically represented data.
Based on this pattern, can you guess how much of a video’s content is retained? 40%? 50%? According to a recent study by Word Stream, viewers retain 95% of the message they see in a video.
That’s enough evidence to shift to animated training videos to teach your employees new concepts. The question, now, is how to integrate animated training videos in your training program effectively. There are two approaches to answer that.
- Where can animated training videos be used?
- What makes great animated training videos?
Let’s explore both of these topics in detail.
There are several scenarios where your company can use animated training videos. Some examples include:
Getting New Employees Acquainted to Your Environment
It is as important for a company to make a good first impression on a new employee as it is for an employee to make a lasting first impression when showing up for an interview.
Instead of the same old, boring orientation lectures with managers reading out rules, you can switch to animated videos…and they’ll work wonders for you!
An animated video can better explain and illustrate how the company works. It will also stick better in the new employee’s mind and will make it easier for them to grasp the concept.
There are a lot things that you can include in these videos, such as:
– A brief introduction of the company.
– An explanation of the way the company works and the code of ethics.
– What’s acceptable and what’s not in the company.
– What behavior is expected from the employees at work.
– General motivation to energize the new entrants.
For example, we produced this fun, short training video for Thomas Reuters a few years back. It explains some of the “do’s and don’ts” about using email in the workplace to the company’s employees.
Technical Training
There can hardly be a better, more effective, and cost-efficient method than animated training videos to teach technical stuff. Whether it is about new machinery, software, practices, or equipment, videos can be the best tool to teach technical stuff in an easy to digest way.
Safety Equipment and Practices
Nothing can illustrate safety procedures and safety equipment better than animated videos. It is very important to deliver safety training to the staff.
But it can be next to impossible to illustrate the proper use of safety equipment to workers in a simple way. The easiest way to do that is through animated videos.
The following facts underscore the importance of proper safety training:
– Occupational injuries account for more than 5,500 deaths in the US.
– As many as 1.3 million workers suffer from non-fatal work-related injuries a year that are severe enough to result in day off.
A lecture may tell people in plain words what to do and what not to do but, remember, only 5% of that lecture will be retained.
An animated training video cannot only explain the same thing much better but for more information will be retained.
Preparing Employees for Simulators
Some trainings include the use of simulators, but simulations cost a lot. Animated videos can be a good starting point to familiarize the subjects of the training with the simulators so that they can grasp the concept and complete simulator training in lesser hours.
Product and Sales Training
In order for your employees to effectively pitch your products to your customers, they need to know them in the first place.
Companies can use animated videos to help the employees understand the working and features of products or the details of their services. This can greatly increase their efficiency in delivering the concepts you want them to.
What Makes Great Animated Training Videos?
Videos are the most effective medium to impart concepts in people’s minds, but not all videos can serve this purpose. Good training videos need to produced in a way that triggers thinking and enhances the process of information absorption in the mind.
Here are some tips that can help you make great animated training videos. Keep in mind that ideally you show outsource the production of these videos to professionals.
Select the Topic Carefully
The first step to making a great animated training video is selecting a topic. That might seem very straight forward but it is not. You need to be specific about the topic. It should not be something as general as “Safety Procedures for Construction Sites.” You need to narrow it down to something like “What to do and not do near a material lift.”
Animated training videos are all about being exclusive. It would be best if you talked about a specific topic in one video so that the concept sticks in the trainees’ minds. This is possible with animated videos because they are relatively inexpensive, and you can produce a whole bunch of them.
Some example topics for animated training videos can be something like:
– How are you expected to behave with your colleagues while in the office?
– What are the ethical principles our firm operates on?
– How should you operate XYZ?
Select a Format for the Video
The next step is to select the format of the video. It can be a whiteboard explainer video, a video with animated characters in it, or one that illustrates products or processes. The format of the video depends on the topic and the intended audience of the video. Select a format that will be easily understandable for the audience.
It is better to seek professional help because the professionals know which format would be the best one for a given scenario. However, try to keep it easy to understand and on the intended audience/trainees’ level.
Make it Look as Close to Real Life as Possible
Our brains are created to process things that appear in nature better than artificial things. Videos with a human-looking characters (ever if they are cartoon-ish) are processed better by the brain and tend to stick more.
So, try to relate videos to real-life scenarios. Create real-life situations and then relate them to the problem in hand to make the concept easy to understand for your audience.
The Script
In the end, it all comes down to the script of the video.
No matter how good the delivery method is, the video will have no point if the concept itself is not clear. You need to write a script that touches all the aspects of the topic. The organization of the content within the video also needs to be in a sequence that naturally flows.
All aspects of the video must be organized. Here are some tips for writing killer video scripts:
– Make an outline that includes all the aspects of the topic.
– Arrange all the parts of the video in a reasonable way.
– Allocate time to different parts as per their importance.
Sound Plays an Important Part
When you are trying to teach something to someone, the more senses you target, the better it is. Videos with only visual information in them and no sound tend to be less effective.
So, create a video with a voiceover that matches the video content to make it more effective in getting your point across. Here again, it is better to consult professionals as making videos is a science and experienced people are likely better at doing this.
Using videos is an effective way of dispersing information. Out of all the methods of training (minus practical training, of course) videos are the among the most effective. They can be used as an efficient and economical way to train employees. You can use them for anything from orientation to safety and operations training and the message will stick in the trainees’ minds.
To make your videos more engaging, they should be on a specific topic. Their format is compatible with the audience, and they target the senses of vision and hearing to maximize knowledge retention in the training subjects.
To get animated training videos that stick in the minds of the trainees, reach out to the professional. They can optimize all aspects of the video to ensure that you get an optimal training solution.
If you need to train your employees through animated training videos, you can contact us. At Gisteo, we create animated training videos in diverse styles at a fair price.
