With more people working remotely, running in-person training is more challenging than ever. A decision maker, subject-matter expert, and employee could be on three different continents, even if they used to live in the same city. In the new normal of a more remote-friendly world, you need to make employee training asynchronous to ensure everyone gets the instruction they need.
In a market where most workers consider leaving companies that don’t train them in skills, self-paced courses are the solution. You can create these videos with Vyond and upload them to Cornerstone’s LMS. Thanks to the LMS’s AI course recommendations, employees will constantly find creative ways to improve their existing skills.
1. Interview employees
Before you write a single word for your training course, interview employees to ensure you choose the most pertinent skills. Your employees can tell you which skills are the most important for their day-to-day jobs, so you craft a course that’s truly useful for them.
Before your meeting, tell employees what the interview is about and how you will structure it. This heads-up also lets them think about what skills could make their work more effective.
During the interview, ask them to walk you through how they solve problems. Listen to their thought process, steps, and results. Were their actions efficient? Is there a better way to solve this problem? Knowing how they work in the present allows you to think about the skills that could make their future work more manageable.
It’s essential to ask “why” after every statement to truly understand why they’re doing things the way they are. These questions help you separate minor problems from detrimental bottlenecks.
2. Create a script and a storyboard
A script and storyboard give you a plan to follow, so you don’t worry about what you’ll say while making the video. They also allow stakeholders to align on the vision for the project.
Scripts contain the words your speaker will use to take someone from not knowing about a topic to mastering it. It needs to be as clear and concise as possible so the viewer understands everything. Avoid complicated explanations or unnecessary industry jargon your viewer may not understand.
Meanwhile, storyboards visually represent your script scenes. They ensure you include the visual aids employees need to grasp a topic. Without the right image or chart, your message can be ambiguous or uncaptivating.
Start your script by breaking down your video’s structure. For example, you could divide it into three sections: an introduction, an explanation of why a skill is valuable, and a use case. Then you can begin writing the lines. You’ll want to keep your video under five minutes; any longer and you may lose a significant amount of viewer engagement. That means your script should be no longer than 750 words, as people generally speak about 100 to 150 words per minute on average.
Next, read your script out loud. If you get stuck at any point, it’s too complicated. Find simpler, shorter words to replace complex ones and repeat this exercise.
Once your script is done, you need to create your storyboard. Draw a series of boxes with lines underneath on a piece of paper. Sketch your scenes within the boxes—they don’t have to be incredibly fancy or skilled drawings, just enough to convey what’s happening in each scene. Write your script for each scene on the lines below it.
3. Make your video with Vyond
Animated videos are perfect for training videos, as research shows that people recall more information from animated lessons than from interview-style videos with just a talking head. Vyond allows you to animate your storyboards using its simple and intuitive interface.
Create a free account and navigate our template library to find dozens of pre-animated videos. Use these templates to inspire the design of your video and save yourself some animating time.
If starting from scratch, log into your account and create a new project. Enter the Character Panel on the left side. See a pre-made character you like? Select it to add to a scene. Otherwise, create your own and choose their body proportions, clothing, and features.
Make the characters talk by recording their lines in the Audio menu. You’ll want to record in a furnished room with few windows to capture clear audio (empty rooms and windows create an echo). You should also take a hot drink with you to maintain your voice quality.
Now that your audio is ready, select your speaker. Enter the Dialog Panel, and click on Add Dialog. You will see your recently recorded lines on the media panel. Select it and watch your character’s mouth move as your recording plays.
Your training would become tedious if your character simply stood in place for two to five minutes. Make it move using the left side’s Motion Path menu. Choose how your character will traverse across your frame and the time it will take to do it. Moving your character from one place to another stimulates the viewer’s attention and keeps them watching.
4. Upload your video to Cornerstone
Cornerstone is an LMS platform where you can host books, articles, and videos. Its artificial intelligence analyzes employees’ skills, roles, and résumés to know which videos and courses to suggest. This helps your team understand how to improve their craft, even if you don’t promote your courses.
This understanding opens up the courses to alternative learning styles. Employees can use articles and blogs to reinforce the lessons learned from your video. And if your employees prefer to listen rather than read, Cornerstone’s AI will recommend audio-only courses. You can easily create your course library to best fit your employees, making it easier for everyone to learn.
It takes a few steps to upload your video to Cornerstone. First, log in to the platform and ensure you are in Admin mode. Then, click on Tools, Learning, Catalog Management, and Videos. Select Create a Video Course and then Upload a New Video.
5. Design a captivating thumbnail
People click on videos that stand out. If employees log into your LMS and see thirty videos that look the same, they won’t know which one to click. Follow three design principles to make captivating thumbnails.
First, establish a visual hierarchy. Make the essential elements in your thumbnail most noticeable, such as by using large, bold fonts.
Second, leave blank space. It’s possible to think that not adding many elements to a thumbnail means you are not designing at all. But employees won’t understand your message if it’s crowded.
Lastly, use colors that differ from each other. This contrast makes it easy for employees to appreciate every element in your thumbnail. They will also recognize it faster while scrolling on Cornerstone, increasing the odds that they watch your course.
Use Canva when designing your Cornerstone course’s thumbnail. You should set a 2:1 aspect ratio and keep the file size below 1 MB, which is necessary to upload your thumbnail to the LMS. Since it’s free, you can experiment with many thumbnail versions until you create one you like.
6. Analyze what could improve
Cornerstone’s analytics suite shows how employees interact with your course. You can learn the training they like the most, understand which skills they work on most often, and use its AI to predict whether or not they’ll keep improving.
You can access the Analytics tab from the homepage. Click on Insights to see a list of various dashboards. The Learning Trends dashboard shows the types of learning material employees interact with the most. Use this information to determine which formats to keep and which ones to ditch. There are also built-in reports for you to study in the Analytics section. See how people are doing on their tests. If only a few people are passing, then you might have an unclear video.
Check the rest of the reports and test solutions. For instance, you can design alternative learning paths where the first courses or lessons discuss the topics employees are less proficient at. Or, if you feel your video is the problem, edit your storyboard and animation. Unlike with live animation, making these changes will be easy, quick, and cheap—just a few clicks of your mouse.
Use Vyond with Cornerstone for your employee training
Use Vyond to create engaging animations that make employees click, watch, and share your training. Workers can reproduce these videos or their audio from any device through Cornerstone. With this flexibility, they can learn new skills whenever they have spare time.
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