Onboarding Videos

How to get new employees on board

The quality of new employee onboarding is crucial for the overall experience of new colleagues in the company. It helps them to quickly get an overview of structures, work areas and work processes, but also of the company's vision and culture.

Many companies are increasingly using video onboarding to complement their traditional processes and bring new employees on board even faster.

What is an onboarding video?

Onboarding videos are typically used during the induction of new employees. They help recruiters, managers and supervisors make the onboarding process more efficient by using pre-produced videos to convey information that they would otherwise have to convey in person in meetings or training sessions. And since much of the information is relevant to each new employee, it saves a lot of time.

Onboarding videos cannot always replace face-to-face training and briefings, of course, but they provide an excellent complement.

Why use video in the onboarding process?

A company handbook or presentation can formally welcome new employees and provide all essential information in writing. But if the onboarding process involves many documents, it may take some time for a new employee to read and process them. And when employees later look for information, they have to read through various documents again.

With short videos on the relevant topics, employees can quickly access the most important information in the digital video library and process it not only faster, but also more easily. In addition, videos can now be subtitled and translated automatically - creating accessibility and reaching the international team effortlessly.

Types of onboarding videos

By building a video-on-demand platform, companies can give their employees quick and easy access to all videos relevant to their business. This can be training, explainer videos on how to use work tools, product videos, tutorials, executive news videos and much more.

Onboarding videos are most often used to increase employee engagement and train new colleagues. Some examples of onboarding videos are:

1. Welcoming videos

The first video in the onboarding process can be a welcome message from the company to new employees and can be from someone like the CEO, the new employee's supervisor or team members. A welcome video is also a good way to introduce the company's values and goals.

2. Knowledge transfer videos

When positions are newly filled, knowledge transfer is crucial so that new employees are quickly trained and can accomplish their tasks. This form of video can be used, for example, to convey information about processes, products or ongoing projects.

3. Corporate policy videos

Every new employee should be acquainted with the basic company rules. Topics such as leave regulations, occupational health and safety, travel activities, sick leave, safety precautions, data protection are just a few of the many topics that can be covered and are part of the basic information provided by the HR department.

4. Training videos

Training videos are very effective and can be used in almost any industry. The many possible uses include, for example, the introduction to new computer programes, safety training, sales training, language courses and other specialist training. Even complex work processes or contents can be explained in a clear and understandable way.

The use of videos that can be viewed many times represents an enormous cost and time saving for a company, because once they have been produced, the videos-on-demand are always and at any time available for the employees to call up. Each employee can determine his or her own learning speed and it is a well-known fact that content that is learned with images and sound stays in the mind much longer than what is read or heard.

In contrast to face-to-face seminars, training videos or learning-on-demand videos are an efficient and cost-effective way to train and inform the workforce. Especially in today's video-savvy times, this makes a lot of sense.

Examples of onboarding videos that might inspire you

Dunkin Donuts

In this video for new employees, the company introduces itself and explains how the employees ensure that customers have fun when buying donuts. Although this video is meant to be informative and provide a short training before starting the job, it is not too specific or boring.

Canva

As a design software company, Canva offers its new employees an insight into its modern offices and explains Canva's history and the goals it intends to achieve. What makes Canva's video special is that it lets different members of the team at all levels have their say.

Adobe

The video starts with the personalisation of the brand "I am Adobe" by the employees, followed by the presentation of the company's vision and mission by the management. It is a brief overview of the company and provides a good first insight for new employees.

Zendesk

Through a combination of smart, quirky voiceover and an interesting concept, Zendesk tells its new and potential employees almost everything there is to know about working at their company. Thematically, they don't focus on work or company policies - this video for new employees is about what it's like to be a part of Zendesk.

Bosch

Promoting employee development is an essential aspect for any company. It ensures that employees can successfully pursue both corporate and individual goals. And this contributes significantly to the sustainable development of the entire company.

Innocom Technologies

This short video from Innocom serves as a brief introduction for new employees. In less than two minutes, the video conveys the most important information about the company to new employees concisely and with simple animations.

Animations are particularly suitable for simple information and training videos, as this example shows:

Deichmann

For the production of "high-gloss" image or recruiting videos, it is recommended to hire a video production company if you do not have any internal professional resources for this. For the production of internal introduction videos, explanatory videos or training videos, it is often sufficient to use one of the numerous online providers that make it possible to create your own videos quickly and easily without prior knowledge and with customisable templates.

Conclusion: Videos do not only play an important role in recruiting. Videos are also an effective tool for onboarding. This way, the company can introduce itself to the new employees before they even enter the company premises. This increases the motivation of new employees and pays off on your employer branding.

Videos also serve to share information in the onboarding process. They enable employees to understand and learn things they need for their new job. With the help of videos, it is possible for them to acquire knowledge more quickly without the need for long and time-consuming mentoring. In this way, not only your company benefits from a time saving, but also the new employees.

Why it is better to use a professional business video hosting platform for your internal corporate videos instead of free platforms such as YouTube, you can read in this article:

Professional video hosting for corporates