Tension, Excitement and even a little but of fear.
That’s what most new hires feel during the period leading up to their first day at their new job.
It’s critical to provide them with as much information and tools early on, so that they have a smooth and quick onboarding process. Smart companies start feeding new hires with vital info before their first day.
Creating effective onboarding content is key. When done correctly, it doesn’t have to be expensive.
More importantly, it’s inarguabley worthwhile.
69% of new hires are likely to stick with your company for at least three years after passing through a well-structured onboarding program.
Videos, more than any other form of content, will resonate most strongly with new hires:
Your new employee will likely retain 95% of the information presented through video, compared to a mere 10% if relayed via text.
Now that you are sold on videos for that ultimate onboarding experience, what training videos should you use? First, it’s important to welcome your new hire(s).
‘Welcome aboard!’ video
Welcome! It’s that simple. But you can be sure the seven-word letter carries significant weight. Making a welcome message for your employees is the best way to set the stage for them. Simply ensure you send the message before they start their first day at the job.
It’s critical to remember that an employee’s first day is a tense one. Making sure he or she feels like they are part of the team before they arrive at the office can go a long way in speeding up their acclimation process.
Just as importantly, such videos are instrumental in introducing new hires to your company culture. Effective welcome videos encourage inclusiveness, teamwork, and engagement among company workers. That simple message will help you reduce your employee turnover rate significantly.
With so many teams working remotely (or at least partially so), it may be awhile before your new hire will get to meet everyone. Make sure to set a strong, communal tone right from the start of a new hire’s tenure at your company.
Outgoing employee video
It’s important to collect insights from whomever was filling the role prior to the new hire.
This may prove difficult to set up when the employee in question is leaving involuntarily or on acrimonious terms.
However, many employees understand that, as professionals, they are expected to lend insights, guidance and tips to those who will be succeeding them in their role. This sentiment will be shared by the majority of departing employees.
It would be best to facilitate this knowledge sharing and documentation in a way that will be easy and non cumbersome for soon-to-be former employees.
Webcam extensions, such as RecTrace, enable departing employees to easily record themselves whenever they feel ready.
This informal approach removes the potential acrimony or tension that may rise if an employee were to be interviewed in front of a camera. As a result, he or she will likely be more forthcoming, and provide the type of insights that will prove invaluable to your new hire.
HR/compliance video
So what does HR Henry want to share? For starters, HR Henry might notify your new employee that the centers for disease control have finally named the COVID-19 a pandemic. But Henry’s most important role is making sure your new hires are well acquainted with your company’s policies.
With COVID-19 threatening to reshape modern work, being able to ensure proper compliance is going to force HR personnel to explore alternative means of communication.
Recording informative videos are easy and scalable. Always a best practice, breaking up videos and presenting them in bite-sizes will likely have a great effect on new hires’ comprehension and retention rates.
Introduction to the team’s platforms
Even well-experienced new hires are likely not to familiar with at least one of the platforms or software you and your team rely-on on a day-to-day basis. Whether it be the marketing automation platform, CRM, internal communication solution or sales documentation tool; there are so many different options out there and your new employee is very likely to have no prior interaction with one or a few of them.
Explore creating a series of bite-sized videos in which you present new employees with the various platforms you use.
Make sure to highlight the areas of the platforms he or she will most frequently come in contact with. You know better than anyone else exactly how your company and/or team leverages a platform to benefit your unique use case/s.
Make sure to provide real-life examples in which the new hire will need to maneuver the platform to best serve your business objectives (e.g. how to create efficient HubSpot workflows), while adhering to your unique corporate guidelines (e.g. not to open new channels on Slack).
Final thoughts and takeaways
Along with feeling excited on the eve of his or her new journey, a new hire will likely also be quite nervous. Quell these feelings by providing a new employee with videos that’ll help him or her get off on the right foot. Dividing videos into smaller chunks and presenting them to new hires in bite-size is especially important at this stage. You can always rely on RecTrace to easily record and send videos to your new hires.
