How to create engaging e-learning videos for employees

With a well-crafted training or e-learning video, learners can pause, play, rewind or repeat as many times as necessary. Video is an engaging medium because it facilitates self-paced learning and increases the effectiveness of the workplace learning process.

That being said, creating e-learning videos takes some time and effort.

To spare you from incurring extravagant costs or spending an unjustifiable amount of hours on creating training videos for your courses, we’ve included some actionable tips to strengthen, simplify and shorten the production process

Create concise, content-rich training videos

When it comes to e-learning videos, especially those dedicated to detailed courses, less is often more.

This means using the principle of simplicity in your e-learning videos to convey information in the simplest way possible.

Ensure that your videos pack a punch by making them concise and focused on a specific topic. Pithy videos are important because most of your employees will find long-length e-learning videos overwhelming, time-consuming and in dire cases, boring.

So, instead of firehosing information your learner with information in a single video, split course material into multiple shorter videos and collect them into a playlist (easy to do with an LXP like Totara Engage). This will enhance an employee’s retention of the subject matter while also respecting their time constraints.

Enhance your video with vivid examples

Filming yourself talking about a topic for hours on end in a talking-head format makes for a poor instructional or educational video. This makes the case for showing examples of skills being applied in real-life situations rather than simply telling your learners what they need to do.

e-Learning videos are ideal for demonstrations or “how-to” content that provides a complete picture of the topic employees are learning about. Capitalising on this visually demonstrative nature, you can improve video training content and give learners greater meaning and context by leveraging:

Whiteboard animations
Simple screen sharing
B-roll footage
And animated graphics

Spice up training videos with simple storytelling

Who doesn’t love a good story?

No matter what learning medium you use, poor-performing and vanilla content will cause learners to quickly lose interest.

One way to avoid this is to inject vigor into your content using simple storytelling elements to make the learning “stick” and provide a captivating experience.

Stop making your online courses too textbook-focused. When you deliver the course through intriguing stories, it will be much easier for learners to follow and retain crucial information.

For example, if you want to teach how to operate equipment, you can start by creating characters that are currently facing a problem. After that, you can break down some possibilities to overcome them.

Add animations to amplify retention

Cartoons and animations have always been a part of our childhood. Fortunately, they also make the online courses more fun and enjoyable to follow.

That’s why videos that primarily rely on animations like animated explainer videos can sometimes help learners retain information better. They take the boredom away from learning – without overshadowing the subject matter.

Not to mention that animation is great for depicting something that can’t be filmed by real-life cameras. This is extremely useful, especially if you deliver content on complicated subjects like science or geography.

Leverage interactive elements to boost engagement

Use tech tools to add quizzes, clickable links on videos, mini-games, branching scenarios, and more. You might also want to give your learners opportunities to ask some questions or provide some feedback.

Ask yourself, ‘how can I spark attention and delight my learners?.’

Put your marketing hat on and try to think about what kind of entertainment your learners would enjoy while absorbing your lessons.

Wrapping up

With the five tips mentioned above, you can now create better video training content to add more flavor and fun to your online courses and training.

If you’re looking to take interactivity and engagement even further, you can combine an enterprise LMS like Totara Learn, with an LXP like Totara Engage to allow your employees to collaborate, share and curate video/ learning playlists and empower your subject matter experts.

About the guest author

Andre Oentoro is the founder of Breadnbeyond, an award-winning explainer video company. He helps businesses increase conversion rates, close more sales, and get positive ROI from explainer videos (in that order).