This is Graham’s second award from the US film festival - receiving a silver screen award in 2000 for his work on Dilmah Tea’s corporate video.

Despite the benefits of training many companies drag their feet when it comes to actually doing it. There are several reasons for this, but often the first biggie is the cost. Expenses such as employing a trainer, writing a programme, finding an appropriate location, catering, accommodation, and travel all add up, and are enough to put off all but the most diehard of training advocates.

One way to negate a lot of this cost is to train by video. Employees can watch a video in the staff lunchroom or at home or as part of the weekly meeting, minimizing location and time costs. Best of all it is re-useable. After the initial cost, the cost of reproduction is minimal, which makes training a large number of employees in multiple locations a low cost, low fuss task. The ability to duplicate a video also means consistency can be maintained in a training programme even if it is conducted throughout the world.

Unfortunately just having a training programme doesn’t guarantee success, and this knowledge can prevent many companies from taking that next step. A poor training programme can have a negative result on the company, leaving employees bored, uninspired and feeling patronized. Therefore, how training needs are determined, how employees view training, and how training is delivered become critically important issues.

While planning a training program can seem daunting there are some steps you can take to make sure it is a success.

Determining your training needs begins with your business strategy – you need to ask yourself what you’re trying to achieve. Ask yourself what the goal of the training programme is. And be specific – do you want to improve customer service at checkouts? or teach your employees how to close a sale?

The next step is to determine what knowledge and skills employees will need to achieve your goals. Do some research and decide exactly what your staff members need to know.
Remember that knowledge is power and if you want to motivate your team it may not be enough just to teach them new skills. You will need to give them a reason for learning, so it’s important your team know why they’re being taught the new skills.

The third and sometimes overlooked step is to identify what skills and knowledge the people in your organization already possess. The idea is to fill the gaps rather than bulldoze over the existing structure. The danger in ignoring this last step is employees can become bored with the training programme – rendering it ineffective, or even worse leave them feeling patronized and resenting the imposition on their time.

The fourth and final step involves a degree of creativity. Once you have determined your training needs you will need to decide how to present them. This is crucial. The information should be presented in an exciting and engaging way, leaving the audience longing for the opportunity to do their job well. American Literary critic Louis Simpson once stated that “The aim of military training is not just to prepare men for battle, but to make them long for it.” The same should be said for effective employee training. Ask yourself – Is my training programme interesting? Am I inspired to put into practice the things I have learnt? If you answer no to these questions you will need to rethink your programme. Occasionally the problem can be a lack of information that will motivate the employees and other times in may just be the presentation. Information overload can leave the audience bored – so pick and chose what you want to communicate carefully.

Video training is a great way to go because it gives you an opportunity to employ a number of formats. You can combine biographical stories and give examples with skits, demonstrations and even footage from actual training sessions. It is a good idea to talk to an expert once you get to this level so that they can provide direction on what will work best for your company and for the information you are trying to communicate.

There are so many factors that need to be taken into consideration at this level that it pays to talk to an expert. Make sure you talk to someone who knows what they are doing because a video can end up communicating much more than you intended. A well presented and engaging video can show how you value your staff, create a sense of pride in your business, and promote staff loyalty and retention. A poor training video? Well I will leave that up to your imagination…

Written by

Athalia Bond

Producer/Director 

The value of human capital has become an all-pervasive catch-cry within the business world. Most organizations now recognize that their people are the business, the very lifeblood which creates the difference between success or failure.

Getting it right…

Developing great human capital can be broken down into three essential principles.

Finding or attracting the right people who will add to the value of your organization.

Keeping the great people you already have.

Building your existing team so that they become great people.

These principles or building blocks of human capital investment are often approached from the wrong angle. Emphasis is commonly put on the first and second principles “finding” and “keeping” and lastly on the final principle “building”.

When companies approach human capital investment from this angle they often find themselves struggling to find or attract great people, and, despite great employee benefits, to keep them.

Success starts with “Building”

“It is only as we develop others that we permanently succeed”
Harvey Samuel Firestone (1868-1938)

Often training or “building” is the last area to receive the company’s attention and valuable resources. “Building” or developing your existing team should be the first area that an organization should look into as this will lead to “keeping” and ultimately “finding” great employees.

“Building” individuals can be done through either external or internal training. Training not only up skills individuals and increases productivity it also has a flow on effect into staff retention or “keeping.”

Training helps retain key staff

Training aids in staff retention in two ways:

Firstly, if an employee feels confident in their job they are likely to stay longer – so by giving them the necessary skills to perform their job competently you will be moving towards achieving this.

Secondly, employees are more content when they feel worthwhile. Employees feel appreciated when the companies show an interest in investing in them. Dissatisfaction with their present position is one of the leading reasons why an employee will leave an organization – not money or lifestyle opportunities.

… And leads to attracting great people

Employee satisfaction is also the key ingredient in “finding” great people. A company that can “keep” their employees will have no problems in attracting great people. Word of mouth is the most powerful advertising tool and effort can then be spent on sorting through the applicants rather than trying to attract them.

Despite these benefits of training many organizations are still either absent in their attempts to train or their attempts to do so are ineffective. Part 2 of this article will look at why this is and how to use video to create effective training programs for your employees.
 

Written by Athalia Bond

Producer-Director

Picture Talk Productions