Achieve more by rethinking video quality

A decade ago it was time-consuming and expensive for L&D to capture employee stories on video. Marketing teams had set high production standards, and enterprise video needed to look big budget and premiere-ready!

When creating corporate videos, there was only one real option available: hire a video production crew.

But, for learning teams this simply wasn’t cost-effective. Having to capture highly-focussed, expert video content to meet specific learning objectives or behaviour change added extra complexity to already convoluted video production workflows. As well as needs analysis and design sessions, it was necessary to run pre-interviews, produce individualised questions, find suitable locations and secure diary time even before the shoot, edit and sign off process.

Corporate video was expensive to shoot at the best of times, but for L&D it was a huge drain on limited resources. So, as video grew in popularity in the consumer space, L&D often fell behind relying on simple animations and long form copy.

Expectations for learning have changed

Today, the polished videos and longform articles L&D has relied on for so long now feel out of step with consumer experiences. They don’t engage people, inspire them to develop skills or change behaviour. Combined with the unstoppable influence of TikTok and Instagram, L&D teams have been forced to rethink how they produce video.

As consumers, we’re used to learning by watching user-generated content, and as a result we’ve recalibrated our expectations of production quality. There’s no doubt this trend is impacting how employees want to learn. Industry analyst Fosway reports 50% of L&D teams are actively looking at user-generated strategies to support the production of learning resources.

However, whilst employee-generated content is more cost-effective, and provides learners with the knowledge they need in a format they want, the same challenges L&D faced back in the day still exist.

Redefine video quality with these new benchmarks

Video for learning typically needs to follow rigorous requirements. It must deliver value to busy employees who are looking to solve problems and support specific business objectives in a way that’s accurate, engaging and doesn’t require large amounts of resource or editing time.

According to The Learning Guild research 96% practitioners say video is a key training strategy but over 55% report time as the biggest barrier to using video in L&D programmes. L&D needs to rethink video quality to overcome barriers and achieve more.

So, how can you rethink video quality to make sure you efficiently meet both specific learning needs and employee expectations without breaking the bank or your team?

Check out the table below to see how social media is influencing expectations. Use these new benchmarks to redefine video quality in your learning programmes.

*  Ranked no.1, 2 and 3 in TechSmith’s Video Viewer Study 2021 for important video content characteristics

** Viewers prefer shorter videos when required to watch something or have specific and immediate problems to solve.

What technology is needed?

Today, quality is less about high production values and more about taking a multi-faceted approach to storytelling. People should be able to hear stories and experiences that are authentic, relatable and make them feel connected to their colleagues as well as meet learning objectives and inspire change.

Polished, expensive video still has a place in enterprise for example with drama or other formats. But, as employees demand more human experiences that space is getting smaller.

By crowdsourcing expertise from across your organisation, you can help everyone connect, learn and thrive at work. Find out how to capture regular on-topic videos without the high cost and admin of traditional video production on a StoryTagger demo. Or download our guide for tips on how to transform your experts into inspiring content creators.