When talking about online video, cat videos and viral campaigns immediately come to mind. However, as a communication medium, there is nothing more effective than video.

This makes it particularly appealing as a tool for employee training. Importantly, video can save a substantial amount of time and money for businesses undertaking a major training program. Read on for our top five tips for making smarter employee training videos.

1. Keep it Short, Sweet, and Asynchronous

The announcement of a mandatory employee training program is often met with subtle eye rolls and groans. That’s largely due to the inordinate time commitment required to participate in the training program. Not to mention it’s usually scheduled without regard to existing workloads.

Sometimes training requires employees to travel long distances. This adds to the expense of organizing the event, and the inconvenience it presents to employees.

You can avoid all of those issues easily with video. When training is made readily available in on-demand thematic video segments, it becomes a true resource to employees. Anyone required to complete the training can do so when it suits their schedule from the comfort of their home or office.

Breaking the training program into shorter chunks makes it easier to digest because it’s less overwhelming. It’s also less work to produce the content. Think one topic, one short video, with several series of videos.

That way, employees can go back to specific segments and rewatch them at any point. They can then complete the training series without disrupting all their other projects.

The savings can really add up. For instance, one of the larger companies using SproutVideo mentioned saving as much as $1 million by switching from live training sessions to online video.

2. Restrict Access to Your Training Content

That’s all well and good. But, training materials often contain sensitive company information. You might be wondering how to prevent unwanted viewers from accessing your training videos.

There are actually a number of ways you can quickly and easily regulate access to your content using SproutVideo. We have the features you need to make sure it remains for employee eyes only.

Allowed IP Addresses

One of the fastest and simplest ways is to use allowed IP addresses. This setting allows you to make sure all viewers are originating from your company’s network.

Videos won’t play for anyone on an internet connection originating outside of your company’s network. The video won’t load on the page, and will not display the video posterframe, title, or description. This solution is optimal for large companies with lots of employees, or relatively high turnover.

Viewer Logins

Another option is to assign user logins to all employees, or one for each group of employees, and grant video access to each individual or group. When login protection is enabled for your video content, you can control video access at a very granular level.

This makes it optimal for situations where you need to assign different videos to different people or groups. You can also set video access to expire, or only allow downloads for specific videos and individuals.

Secure Embeds

A third option is to embed your videos in an employee portal, like Sharepoint for example. Access to your videos will also be regulated because you already control permissions for specific pages and sections of your Sharepoint site.

If you leave your videos set to Private on SproutVideo, they will only show up and be playable where they are embedded. This ensures that only people who can access your employee portal can view your content. For additional security, you can use domain whitelisting to ensure your embed codes will only work on your internal site, and cannot be copied to another webpage.

Single-Sign-On

If you’re using SproutVideo’s video website features to share your videos, then single-sign-on is an additional option available to you. Single-sign-on (SSO) authenticates your viewers by using your existing Identity Provider. Popular choices for Identity Providers include Microsoft ADFS and Google Apps.

When using SSO, your viewers are redirected to your Identity Provider for authentication. After they enter their credentials, they are then redirected back to your video website, where they can access your content. Anyone without company-issued login credentials would not be able to access your video website.

3. Include Interactive Elements

Training videos don’t have to be boring or dull. One simple way to increase engagement around a training video is to allow commenting on the video site.

Moderate the comments, and track the topics viewers ask about. The questions and answers will serve as a resource for any future viewers who may have a similar question about the material. That way, viewers can interact with each other and have conversations around the video.

4. Follow Up Post Play

Using a customizable post-play screen, you can link to a quiz on the material, a survey, or more training resources. The important idea is to keep viewers engaged with the training program, and give them an opportunity to provide feedback, confirm their learning, or look into related information.

5. Make Sure You Can Measure Completion Rates

Ultimately, you need to know if training is working. Part of that is knowing exactly who completed the material, and whether they watched all of it, skipped some of it, or replayed certain parts extensively. All of that data is available with SproutVideo’s video engagement metrics, which provide detailed reports of viewer behavior.

You might notice that people are not completing the training or are skipping parts entirely. You can seek feedback, and check for areas needing improvement in the material. Check if viewers are already proficient in the subject matter, and suggest more advanced topics.

If viewers are rewatching certain sections repeatedly, then they probably love it. Alternatively, you may need to rework it if you suspect the concept is too complex, or glossed over in the video.

Thinking about implementing video for employee training? Ask me your questions in the comments below!