It’s no secret that video has become the foundation for how we work and learn. If you’re like many learning and development (L&D) leaders, you’re already leveraging video to create engaging and effective training material.

But what happens to your training videos once they’re complete? Do your employees frequently draw on this content or is it gathering dust in Sharepoint or some other central storage?

If you’re training an organization, you need a corporate video learning library.

What is a corporate video learning library?

A corporate video learning library is a central, secure, easily accessible channel for an organization’s training and development resources. Think of it as a corporate YouTube tailored to your employees’ exact needs.

Today’s distributed workforce expects access to information when, where, and in the format that they need it. A video learning library helps transform your training material into on-demand knowledge, accessible at the speed of need.

How to Create an Effective Video Learning Library

 

1. Understand your employees

In order to best support employee learning, it’s essential to get to know their behaviors and needs:

• Location: Where are your teams situated? Do they work in the same time zone or region? Are they frequently on-site or in the field?
• Devices: What hardware do employees use throughout the day? Do they rely on mobile and tablet devices?
• Learning resources: Where do they currently access information and training support? Do they rely on past emails and messages, search a shared drive for materials, or turn to colleagues for help?
• Behavior: How often do employees look for quick answers vs. more in-depth documentation?
• Pain points: What technical or process roadblocks impact their ability to locate information quickly?

Gathering this feedback doesn’t need to be time-consuming. Consider conducting a brief survey or brainstorm – the important thing is to listen to your employees.

2. Identify and populate useful content

Now that you know the needs of your learners, you can create high-value video content to meet their needs. What exactly are the characteristics of useful video training?

• It’s recorded: The first step to populating your video learning library is simple: hit record. While it sounds like a no-brainer, you’d be surprised how many organizations conduct training over video conferencing without recording the sessions. It’s the L&D equivalent of sending a disappearing Snapchat. Record all of your training so that employees can access it on-demand.
• It’s authentic: Gone are the days of perfectly polished corporate training videos. People connect with content that solves their immediate need, and more often than not that’s an authentic, self-produced video. Engage your employees and SMEs in the content creation process by equipping them with the tools to easily record a robust library of genuinely useful video training – no production team required.
• It’s flexible: Your employees need different types of information to tackle different challenges. Sometimes they’re looking for a quick answer to complete a specific task while other times they might want to dive deep into the details of a particular topic or process. The beauty of a video learning library is its flexibility. Employees can watch entire videos, quickly skim a transcript, or search for specific words or content inside the video to jump to the exact moment they need.

Video training doesn’t end at pre-recorded content, either. Consider recording standing meetings, role plays, and other informal or social learning moments to incorporate into your video learning library.

3. Help employees quickly and easily find content

You’ve built out a body of valuable training content – but are your employees using it? An effective video learning library supports flexible, convenient, and quick access to information in the flow of every employee’s unique working style.

How do you achieve this?

First, meet people where they’re already working.

Your employees have no shortage of tools, apps, and software to juggle every day – the last thing they want is yet another one to monitor. A great video learning library integrates with the tools your teams already use, from your corporate LMS and CRM, to communication apps like Slack, Zoom, and Microsoft Teams. Integrations help employees access your video learning library directly from the tools they’re currently using without interrupting their workflow.

Second, prioritize just-in-time learning.

People rarely apply new learnings during live training sessions. The real value of training is implementing what they’ve learned later, on the job. Yet research shows that just 30 minutes after a training, participants remember only 58% of the material covered and after a week, just 35%. How can you help employees recall past learning to solve a current problem?

“Googling” has conditioned us all to expect immediate answers at the tap of a search key. With a video learning library, employees can instantly search all your training videos to find the answers they need without disrupting the flow of their work. All spoken and written content in a training video is automatically indexed – from slide decks to verbal lectures – so employees can quickly jump to the exact information they’re looking for.

The best part? There’s no need to manually upload and tag content. A video learning library like Panopto automatically saves, categorizes, and shares videos so you can focus on more strategic L&D priorities.

4. Evangelize your video learning library

By now you know how valuable a corporate video learning library is for your L&D goals, but does the rest of your organization? Like any new initiative, it will take time for your employees to get used to new habits. Set your video learning library up for success by helping your teams see its business value.

• Brand it: Bring your video learning library in line with your brand by customizing it with your logo and colors. Show employees that it’s not just another tool, but an important pillar of your business.
• Lead by example: Rather than a typical email announcement, launch your video learning library with…a video! Bring its value to life by demonstrating how fast and easy it is to locate the information they need.
• Identify champions: Find early adopters in each team or department to advocate for your video learning library. Encourage them to share their experiences using the search feature or accessing a critical past training.
• Make it fun: The hardest part of behavior change is getting people to start. Launch lightweight competitions like a scavenger hunt to find specific topics or videos. Create incentives for people to discover what’s possible with your video learning library.

Communicate, communicate, and communicate some more. Once your employees discover the power of on-demand, searchable training, they’ll never look back.

5. Iterate and improve

Your video learning library is a living platform. Support better training outcomes for your employees by continuously evaluating and improving your content as it scales.

Regularly assess how people are engaging with training content. How often do they watch videos each week? What keywords do they search for? Which videos – and which points within them – are most popular? Learn from usage behavior to create more engaging and effective training in the future.

With a video learning library, you can easily access reports highlighting audience engagement statistics and video analytics to help you surface insights and demonstrate the value of your training initiatives.

Build your own corporate video learning library

Ready to transform your training videos into on-demand, just-in-time knowledge that helps your employees work better and smarter?

 

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