So, you’re ready to make some training videos but aren’t quite sure where to begin? The best way to start is actually by forgetting about the technical stuff for a minute. Don’t worry about cameras or lighting just yet. Instead, let’s think about the people and how video can make your new hires feel seen, supported, and connected from day one.
As an HR pro, your entire world revolves around people. Your mission is to build an environment where every single employee feels valued and is truly set up for success. This is exactly why learning to make training videos is less of a technical chore and more of a strategic superpower for your People team.
Think about a new hire’s first day. Instead of being buried under a mountain of paperwork, what if they were greeted by a warm, authentic welcome video from the CEO? Suddenly, the company’s vision feels personal. That sense of belonging starts to click into place before they even touch their first real work assignment.
Build Genuine Human Connections at Scale
This human-first approach is where video shines. It’s not about replacing crucial face-to-face interactions; it’s about making them even better. Video gives you the power to scale the most important parts of your culture and training consistently, making sure every employee gets the same clear, welcoming message.
That consistency is a game-changer for building a strong foundation. When key information is delivered with the same tone and clarity every single time, you cut down on the friction and anxiety that often plague those first few weeks on the job. Employees feel more confident, and that has a direct line to their engagement and long-term retention.
Key Takeaway: Training videos are about so much more than just information dumps. They’re a powerful tool for shaping your company culture, building trust, and making new hires feel like they’re part of the team from the get-go.
Free Up Your Team for What Matters Most
Just think about how much time your team spends repeating the same information over and over during onboarding sessions. By creating videos for these recurring topics, you’re not just saving time, you’re reclaiming valuable hours. This frees you and your team up to focus on high-value, personal interactions, like one-on-one check-ins, mentoring, and actually fostering team connections.
It’s for this very reason that the use of video in corporate settings is skyrocketing. In fact, some projections show that 89% of businesses globally will be using video as a primary communication tool by 2025 for everything from quick tutorials to detailed policy explainers.
Ultimately, a solid video training program helps you do more with less. It empowers you to deliver a top-notch onboarding experience that boosts confidence and supports your new hires, all while saving your team’s precious time and energy. To really unlock the full potential of your HR initiatives, it’s worth diving into some comprehensive staff training best practices to ensure your team is always performing at its peak.
5 High-Impact Videos You Can Create This Week
Ready to see how training videos can become a core part of your people strategy? Here’s the good news: you don’t need a massive production to make a real difference. The goal is to create content that solves a genuine need for your new hires, helping them feel more confident and connected right from the jump.
You can start small, right now, with a few key videos that tackle the most common friction points in any onboarding journey. These ideas are designed to be simple to produce but deliver huge value, making your new team members feel welcomed and truly supported from their very first day.
1- The Warm Welcome From a Leader
Imagine this: it’s day one, and a new hire opens their inbox to find a short, personal video from your CEO or their direct team lead. It’s not a slick, corporate ad. It’s a genuine message sharing excitement for their arrival, touching on the company’s vision, and reinforcing why their specific role matters.
This one video instantly builds a human connection. It sends a clear message: “You are seen, you are valued, and you’re now part of something bigger.” That’s how you set a powerful, positive tone for their entire experience.
2- Clear and Simple Policy Explainers
Let’s be honest: nobody enjoys digging through dense policy documents. Why not transform those boring but essential topics, like your remote work policy or expense reporting, into short, animated explainer videos? A two-minute video that walks through the key points is far more engaging and memorable than a 10-page PDF.
This approach doesn’t just improve comprehension; it shows respect for your employees’ time and makes necessary information feel approachable instead of intimidating.
3- Step-by-Step Tool Walkthroughs
“How do I submit a leave request in the HRIS again?” It’s a question you’ve probably answered hundreds of times. A simple screen recording that guides new hires through essential platforms is an absolute game-changer. Think of walkthroughs for your HR system, project management tool, or key communication apps.
These practical guides empower employees to find answers themselves and handle basic tasks with confidence. It reduces their anxiety and, just as importantly, frees up your team from answering the same questions over and over.
4- Culture in Action Videos
Company culture can feel a bit abstract until a new hire actually sees it for themselves. You can make it tangible by creating short videos that showcase your culture in authentic ways. This could be a quick compilation of team members sharing a recent project win or a short highlight reel from your company’s volunteer day.
These little snippets offer a real window into what it’s really like to work at your company. They help new hires understand the unspoken norms and feel more connected to their colleagues on a personal level.
5- Role-Specific Onboarding Series
Instead of a one-size-fits-all approach, a mini-series of videos tailored to specific roles can be incredibly powerful. A new sales rep could get videos on navigating the CRM and lead qualification best practices. Meanwhile, a new engineer might receive a walkthrough of the codebase and deployment process.
This kind of targeted knowledge helps them feel productive and capable much faster. It’s the ultimate proof that you’ve invested in their individual success from the very beginning.
Not all video formats serve the same purpose. Some are great for building connection, while others are all about practical, just-in-time learning. Choosing the right format depends entirely on the goal you’re trying to achieve for both the new hire and your team.
Here’s a quick look at how different video types stack up.
Impact of Different Training Video Types
| Video Type | Primary Benefit for New Employee | Primary Benefit for HR Team |
|---|---|---|
| Leader Welcome | Builds immediate connection and a sense of belonging. | Sets a positive, top-down tone for the entire onboarding experience. |
| Policy Explainer | Makes complex information digestible and easy to remember. | Ensures consistent understanding of policies and reduces compliance risk. |
| Tool Walkthrough | Empowers self-sufficiency and reduces task-related anxiety. | Drastically cuts down on repetitive questions and support tickets. |
| Culture in Action | Provides an authentic look at the company’s values and norms. | Helps attract and retain talent that aligns with the company culture. |
| Role-Specific Onboarding | Accelerates time-to-productivity with targeted information. | Improves role-specific performance and reduces the learning curve. |
Ultimately, a mix-and-match approach is your best bet. A warm welcome video creates the emotional foundation, while a practical tool walkthrough gives them the skills they need to get started. By combining different formats, you create a well-rounded onboarding experience that is both supportive and effective.
Crafting Your Message for an Authentic Connection
The most effective training videos don’t feel like corporate mandates. They feel like a helpful conversation with a seasoned teammate. The real secret to learning how to make training videos that stick isn’t about expensive gear; it’s about the authenticity of your message.
You want to create something that feels genuine and relatable. That starts with dropping the stiff, corporate jargon. Instead of talking at your new hires, aim to talk with them. A warm, empathetic tone can make even the most complex information feel accessible. When you approach your message with a people-first mindset, you build instant trust.
Focus on the Why Behind the What
Here’s a simple but powerful scripting trick: always explain the “why” behind the “what.” Don’t just show a new hire what button to click. Take a moment to explain why that step is so important for the team, the customer, or the project’s success.
This small shift in perspective transforms a dry tutorial into a meaningful piece of guidance. When you explain the reasoning, you’re respecting your new hire’s intelligence and helping them see how their individual tasks connect to the bigger picture. This context is what turns new employees into valued contributors, not just cogs in a machine. It’s a fundamental part of making any explainer video work, whether it’s for internal training or marketing. We cover similar ground in our guide to crafting a perfect kickstarter explainer video.
Write Like You Speak
Forget the formal business writing you learned in school. When it comes to video scripts, the best ones sound natural when spoken aloud. As you’re writing, literally read your talking points out loud. If it sounds clunky or robotic, rephrase it until it flows like you’re just talking to someone.
This conversational approach is everything. It makes the information easier to digest and helps the person on camera, whether it’s a team lead or the CEO, come across as approachable and real. As you work on your message, it helps to understand the fundamentals of how to create video content, from planning and scripting to the final cut.
Key Insight: Authenticity isn’t about being a professional actor; it’s about genuine communication. Featuring your own team members, even with their natural imperfections, builds far more trust than a polished but impersonal production.
Scaling Your Onboarding with Video Automation
Let’s talk about a familiar pain point for anyone in HR: the endless loop of onboarding presentations. You’ve perfected that welcome deck, you know the platform tutorial by heart, and you deliver it with energy… again and again. It’s not just draining; it’s a recipe for inconsistency.
What if every single new hire received the exact same high-quality, perfectly delivered information, every single time? This is where learning how to make training videos intersects with a powerful HR strategy: automation.
Scale the Human Touch, Don’t Remove It
Video automation isn’t about taking the human element out of onboarding. It’s about scaling it. When you automate the repetitive bits, like software walkthroughs or policy explainers, you free up your team for the conversations that truly matter. The one-on-ones, the check-ins, the chats that build real relationships and make someone feel like they belong.
Think of it this way: automation handles the mundane so you can amplify the meaningful. It’s a strategic move to ensure consistency and quality at scale, giving you back the hours needed for personal check-ins, mentoring, and genuine culture-building activities.
This approach is a direct counter to the burnout that comes from constant repetition. You can deliver a stellar, consistent onboarding experience without stretching your team thin. It also makes sure crucial information is always on hand, which is especially vital when using video to communicate with remote teams.
How Automation Works for HR
So, what does this actually look like in practice? It’s much simpler than it sounds. Modern tools designed for HR can take standard data points and spin them into personalized, engaging videos.
- Personalized Welcome Videos: Imagine automatically generating a unique welcome video for every new hire. It can use their name, team, and start date to create a warm, personal touch from their very first day.
- Automated How-To Guides: Build a library of quick software tutorials. The moment a new team member needs help with a specific tool, a video guide is ready to be shared instantly.
- Consistent Policy Updates: When a company policy changes, you just update one master video. From that point on, every future hire gets the most current version, guaranteeing everyone is on the same page.
By embracing video automation, you’re doing more than just creating content efficiently. You’re building a scalable, people-first onboarding system that supports your new hires while empowering your HR team to focus on what they do best: connecting with people.
Break It Down with Micro-Videos
Another key to making your training stick is to respect your employees’ time and attention. Let’s be honest, no one wants to sit through a 45-minute onboarding epic.
Instead, think small. Break down complex topics into a series of short, digestible micro-videos. A five-minute video on how to submit an expense report is so much more approachable and memorable than a single chapter buried in a massive training module.
This “micro-learning” approach has some serious perks:
- Boosts Knowledge Retention: Shorter videos are just easier to process. Your team will absorb and remember the key takeaways without feeling overwhelmed.
- Creates a Searchable Library: When someone needs a quick refresher, they can find the exact two-minute video they need in seconds. No more scrubbing through a long recording trying to find the right spot.
- Supports “Just-in-Time” Learning: It empowers your team to find answers right when they hit a roadblock, letting them solve problems on their own.
Will Video Automation Make Our Onboarding Feel Impersonal?
It’s a totally valid concern, but the reality is often the complete opposite. Automating the repetitive, information-heavy parts of training is precisely what frees you up for the personal connections that truly matter. When you automate a dry policy explainer video, you gain back an hour you can use for a meaningful one-on-one check-in with a new hire.
Automation ensures every single employee gets the same consistent, high-quality information, which means crucial details don’t get missed. It’s not about replacing the human touch; it’s about automating the mundane so you can amplify the meaningful.
Ready to scale your people-first onboarding without all the repetitive work? Explore video automation for HR teams to see how you can save time while delivering a great, consistent experience.
