Video has become synonymous with our online experience, both for entertainment and business communication. Even before 2020, video's unique strengths also made it the perfect tool for workforce training, employee onboarding, as well as legal, sales, policy, and partner training.
Why is that? Well, that's what I'm here to share with you. Here are 14 reasons you should use on-demand video to improve your recruitment, training, and development programs.
What is On-Demand Video?
Thanks to the rise of zoom, video conference, and live-streaming, I need to differentiate between video "on-demand" and just plain video.
Video can mean any sequence of digital moving images, from GIFs to Zoom meetings. While video conferencing and live-streaming are precious tools for education, I'm talking specifically about "on-demand video." Think Netflix or Amazon Prime.
Video on demand (VOD) allows your employees or students to choose which video they want to watch, when, and where. In the world of education, think of Masterclass, Youtube, and Lynda.com.
Video on demand for corporate training and development is a game-changer.
Despite being spread out provincially and globally, Kal Tire has a strong culture because they've adopted video-on-demand as their internal communications and corporate learning backbone.
Save Time and Money
If you think about it, there are many logistics and budgets you can save or redirect to other activities by investing in on-demand video training.
Yes, there are upfront costs to crafting the course content, but once your videos are completed, you can use them time and time again to teach the same lesson or repurposed for other uses such as marketing—all in all, your ROI increases.
Now think about all the costs involved in travelling and commuting to receive training or provide quality training and development.
Add the costs of additional investment in IT infrastructure and video call licensing. For large companies and organizations, this can cost upwards of millions.
On-demand video will alleviate these costs while providing high-quality learning resources because the videos and course content are either hosted by a 3rd party such as Wistia or Vimeo.
Here are more reasons to move to video-on-demand e-learning:
In some large organizations, up to 60% of total training costs are attributed solely to travelling costs.
With corporate e-learning, IBM managers could learn five times more content at one-third of the cost. As a result, IBM saved $200 million, which accounted for around 30% of their previous training budget.
By moving from physical classrooms to corporate e-learning tools, Dow Chemical saved $34 million and reduced their training course costs from $95 per learner to $11 per learner.
Shell, one of the largest oil companies globally, has used e-learning to reduce the cost of their priciest training programs by 90%, deliver more than 12,000 virtual lessons, and save over $200 million.
Source: https://e-student.org/e-learning-statistics/
Increase Retention:
Delivering effective training and education with video will lead to higher retention rates for both employees and customers. This is significantly cheaper than hiring new employees and acquiring new customers.
Fewer Hours and Resources Used
Rather than spending time and money delivering in-person workshops, seminars, product demonstrations, and white papers, on-demand video will enable customers, managers, and employees to set their own learning pace.
Taking all their training online, IBM managers could learn five times more content at one-third of the cost. As a result, IBM saved $200 million, which accounted for around 30% of their previous training budget.
With educational videos, you will also save time in answering frequently asked questions and support queries.
Minimize Time Lost
The faster you can train your employees or minimize their time away from their work, the more you’ll save money and start making money. With on-demand video training, critical work will be less interrupted. This will also give you the flexibility to rotate training one employee one at a time or provide after-hours training.
Reduce Safety Costs
Having access to training resources and safety procedures from any device 24/7, especially visual training and examples, is a step toward reducing safety-related injuries and costs.
Increase the adoption, use, loyalty, and purchase of your products and services.
Both Hubspot and Adobe are great examples of companies that have effectively used customer education to grow their businesses and drive the use of their products and services. The better educated your customers are, the quicker they will use your product or services, and the more satisfied they will be.
96% of people have watched an explainer video to learn more about a product or service.
This is as much true for your customers as it is for your employees. Using video will shorten the learning curve and the time to implement new software and equipment.
Ramp-up New Hires Faster
Support new employees and your growing onboarding needs for multiple departments, offices, remote locations in a way that is cost-effective and will give real results.
Flexible
The workplace is changing, and so is the way people learn. With the new possibilities offered through distance education and remote work, on-demand video will provide you with the flexibility to deliver courses and training across long distances, multiple timezones and devices, and busy schedules.
More than that, you can deliver an impactful and custom-tailored learning experience that makes sense to your audience: reenactments, animation, screen captures etc...
Educate and train anywhere, anytime.
Lynda.com, Thinkific, and MasterClass have led the online learning industry and have created higher expectations for students and learners. More than their quality, their video courses and content are self-paced with on-demand and engaging video lessons.
Once their video or lecture has been crafted and placed online, it can be used time and time again to teach the same lesson. When new information is discovered, it is updated, then it is used again over and over.
Not only that, video lessons can be uploaded, accessed, and embedded on just about every platform. All the major online learning platforms, such as Docebo, Kajabi, Kartra, Thinkific, integrate video natively. This allows you to deliver your courses 24/7 anywhere in the world, and on any device.
Watch more samples of our work with great companies like The Digital Dentistry Institute and Thompson Rivers University!
Safe From Infection
Organizations worldwide have been doing their part to reduce the spread of infections and provide a healthy and safe workplace. A big part of that solution has been social distancing with fewer people in a given workplace, meeting, or classroom. On-demand video will give you the tools to provide ongoing and high-quality education and training safely.
Accessible
On-demand video will give you the ability to deliver quality training and education without having to coordinate annual/weekly workshops, events, seminars, demonstrations, or manage multiple locations and educators. Online video will also provide customers and employees with disabilities or demanding schedules with more options in accessing quality training.
User-Friendly
Video delivers information in a format that can reach multiple languages, abilities, and cultures. Because video engages more of our senses (sight, sound, and emotion), you will be able to provide educational content and training that results in higher engagement and retention rates.
When asked, 66% of consumers preferred to watch a video to learn about a product or service, and 74% were convinced by watching video content.
Deliver Consistent and Sustainable Education
Consistency is one of the “biggest challenges” to delivering quality courses and training at scale across all your locations, content, educators, certifications, and learners. Travel restrictions, local health bylaws, and smaller budgets have all created new challenges.
On-demand video will help you overcome these challenges and deliver consistent training and development resources aligned with your brand initiatives.
Brand Building
Seth Godin wrote that a brand “is the set of expectations, memories, stories and relationships that, taken together, account for a consumer’s decision to choose one product or service over another.” Branding is true for businesses as well as educators. So, building better online courses and training with on-demand video will help you create a consistent and user-friendly experience and inspiring trust.
By committing to using more video in your training and development, you'll save high costs while boosting your team's effectiveness.
Request a free consultation with our team, and we'll help you build your training and development video resources.