Employee training videos have become one of those artifacts of the business world; they are parodied in entertainment (often really well), and serve as the bane of jokes for employees; whether it be during orientation or those periodic training sessions. Employee training videos are often not well-shot; they are dry and boring. In the rare occasion they try to insert in some ‘cinematic value,’ they miss the mark. The typical overly-dramatic scenarios are often not realistic. (A great video for how not to make employee training videos of your own -and it’s hilarious – is “Employee Training Video” by Limitless Films, LLC).
YouTube has thousands of both parodied and real employee training template videos, (some of which don’t hold proprietary rights and are actually useable for your own training needs). Some videos are high quality and can serve as inspirational templates for the creation of your own videos. Others are of interesting historical value because they peek into the training methods of well-established and long lived companies (which is interesting in retrospect). Yet others serve to show the different business attitudes and approaches that are chosen for specific types of services or industries.
Today I Am Going to Point Out 3 Employee Training Videos Geared Toward the Trainer
these are instructional videos that you -as a trainer- can learn from
I wanted to include a few training videos that companies have used over the past few decades to exemplify how although times have changed, some concepts have remained the same.
Alysa Lambert, instructor at IU Southeast, guides you through a well-prepared and professional look at employee training and development. She emphasizes the many processes inherent to entire process. Lambert covers not only the technical aspects of training, but also the human element.
Lambert is a good speaker and her video is very insightful, even though it’s somewhat brief. Most people tend to lose focus, if all the information is covered in one long video rather than a series. In addition, long video runtimes are a very recent feature addition to YouTube.
I do recommend looking through the rest of her HR Management series, of which this video is part of; they also provide a lot of insight into training-related leadership issues.
Wendy’s has the philosophy that training should be fun and engaging, and that the workplace , including training for the workplace, should not be dry or lifeless. This video uses singing, music and some (really bad) transitional special effects to get their point across in an entertaining way.
Jingles are great for memory, especially when it comes to something technical. In this video the song was about how to remember the different rules relating to cup sizes and drinks – but the same concept could be applied to a task that requires an ‘order of operations’ or more complicated tasks. Be fun, engaging and entertaining and your employees will be more than happy to attend a training session (and remember it).
You don’t run a theme park? That’s ok, that’s not the important aspect of this video. This video was created as a training program for employees of North American Midway Entertainment (NAME) and is hosted by Amber Sedgen.
Theme parks are one of the hardest places to handle customer interaction, and if you can handle the stresses of handling customer relations, in person, at that sort of location, then you darn well can in just about any other industry. The video may be dry but it does one thing very well- it covers all corners. And it does so with live footage as a supplement to the speaker. When you makes a training video, the details cannot be overlooked.
I have given you 3 great employee training videos that cover the basic concepts. Just remember to keep your videos professional and fun, and to cover all your details I hope they will provide you with some great ideas for your future training videos. Related materials can be found on employee training software page. Good Luck.
