We’ve all been there, starting a job in a new organisation. It can be a tricky experience as we wade through a swamp of new acronyms and procedures, trying to keep our heads above water as we learn how to swim.
This is where onboarding comes in, giving us a raft as we navigate our way to understanding in the new world we find ourselves in. This becomes a little more difficult as work becomes increasingly remote; how does an organisation communicate its culture and processes?
With its ability to combine storytelling with information and emotive connection, this is an area where whiteboard animation can help, replacing that raft with a yacht as it informs new hires in all the areas they’ll need to thrive.
The benefits of an effective remote onboarding process
Onboarding matters and when done well brings several massive benefits to you and your new staff. Perhaps most importantly, a well thought out remote onboarding process gives your new hires the best experience as they find their feet in your organisation. As well as making someone feel like part of the team and at home, well-planned onboarding builds trust by ensuring that a new team member is fully trained in the systems and tasks they will be involved with.
And the result of a thorough and thought out remote onboarding process? Your new staff will feel ready, confident and able to help you achieve your goals and build towards your vision. The positive impact of this kind of onboarding was highlighted by The Boston Consulting Group, who found that compared with organisations that didn’t onboard people well, organisations that did had:
2.5 times more revenue growth
1.9 times the profit margin
The remote onboarding process does bring some new challenges, compared with more traditional approaches. Not least is the new method and the new materials that need to be created, and this is where whiteboard animation can help. There are also some great tips for tips for onboarding remote employees here remote employees here.
How can whiteboard animation help with the onboarding of remote employees?
Whiteboard animation and the whiteboard animation videos it creates is well placed to become your remote onboarding and training assistant. Whiteboard animation uses the power of well-written scripts, engaging visual language, on-screen text and professional voiceovers to bring information and messages to life.
We wanted to test whiteboard animation videos against traditional ‘talking head’ videos and conducted some whiteboard animation research with Professor Richard Wiseman, Professor of the Public Understanding of Psychology at the University of Hertfordshire. It was an honour and a pleasure to work with Professor Wiseman, and together we found that compared with the ‘talking head’ video, the whiteboard animation video was:
66% more likely to be shared
resulted in a 15% increase in information retention
was rated 33% more entertaining
Whiteboard animation is our passion and we were delighted by these findings. One of our favourite things about whiteboard animation is how versatile it is, it can help with onboarding remote employees at every stage of the process.
Storytelling
One of the most difficult things to communicate when onboarding remote employees is the company culture. Every organisation has a history and culture which have taken it to where it is today and are important for any new employee to understand. Whiteboard animation can help you with this challenge through the use of storytelling.
Storytelling is at the heart of whiteboard animation and allows you to communicate your values, culture and history in a way which connects emotionally and factually with new staff - while also being entertaining and memorable. It was a privilege to tell the story of WeTransfer in this animation.
Making the complex simple
By combining scripts, illustration, animation and voiceovers, whiteboard animation is able to explain complex processes in a way that makes them easy to understand. Even complex processes can be explained in a simple and memorable way using the whiteboard animation method. Whiteboard animation is so good because it uses visual storytelling.
At a larger scale, a whiteboard animation video connects ideas together and layers information. At the small, devices like visual metaphors transform complex or abstract points into relatable imagery. Cultural references and humour add to this relatability, and the visual storytelling from small scale to big picture is all delivered through custom-made illustrations designed to give your message maximum impact.
We did this recently for EuroQol, explaining the registration process for the EQ-5D.
Explaining your products and services
One of the most common uses we’ve seen for whiteboard animations is as explainers for products and services. They are perfect for the task, giving a full and engaging description of what things do, how they work and why they should be used. This information is perfect for customers and prospective clients. It’s even more perfect for new staff members.
When onboarding remote employees, the opportunity for shadowing or lunch-and-learns is lost. Traditionally, a lot of information would have been shared this way and in their absence product and service explainer videos are great at giving new staff all the information they will need to get started.
We have made lots of films that give this kind of detail, including an award-winning series for Janssen Pharmaceuticals about coronary artery disease, peripheral artery disease and treatment options.
Making dry (but very important) information engaging
As your new hires become acquainted with your organisation, it’s important to train them in the key policies which govern your industry and how you work. These aren’t always the most interesting things and anyone who has ever tried reading the Apple Ts and Cs will know how hard this kind document can be to get through.
Nevertheless, the information is essential and staff need to know it. This is where whiteboard animation plays its trump card - entertainment. By using the visual metaphors and cultural references we mentioned before, a whiteboard animation video can repackage these dry policies into memorable and enjoyable visual narratives.
We enjoy using visual thinking to explain subjects and did this for CCL Academy, who wanted us to explain the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority’s Senior Managers & Certification Regime and its implications.
Making information accessible and replayable
We all have different learning preferences and speeds and whiteboard animations are well placed to cater to a wide variety. Like a multi-talented assistant with infinite patience, they are ready to assist you in your training. When it comes to learning preferences, the combination of illustration, animation and voiceovers allow your whiteboard animation video to work well for people whether they are visual, auditory, reading or kinesthetic learners.
We all learn at different speeds and it can take several explanations to fully grasp an idea. Whiteboard videos are ideal in the situation, as they are a permanent resource a new member of staff can refer to as often as they like while getting accustomed to the role - making them the gift that keeps on giving. Being useable in multiple rounds of training they are also able give even more, becoming valuable assets in your remote onboarding process.
Video is also a very versatile medium. The same video will work on anything from a smartphone and tablet to a laptop, monitor or smart TV - giving the same experience each time. This means whatever technology your team are using, you can be sure they will be getting a good remote onboarding experience.
All this goes a long way to creating a positive onboarding experience for remote employees, giving them all the information they need to understand the organisation, its values, the policies, the products and the tasks. Most importantly this much revisitable knowledge allows a new staff member to feel confident and ready to begin their career with you.
Giving key meetings a lasting impact
Love them or hate them, meetings are a great way of bringing everyone together. You can deliver essential news and updates to a large part of your team all at once. The information you share can be a must-know for new and experienced staff alike, but ensuring everyone takes it on in a remote world can be tricky. There are so many distractions!
Whether it’s Slack going off, the weather outside, the cat getting ready to destroy something precious - holding attention and landing messages can face a whole host of new challenges. Whiteboard animation videos can help you win the battle against distractions and ensure your message makes it.
In the meeting itself, whiteboard animation videos (or digital scribing and illustrations) can help you make your messages memorable and your meeting engaging. It’s after the meeting has finished however that whiteboard animation really comes into its own. If your meeting covered something critical to your company, turning your meeting notes into a short whiteboard animation that can be sent to everyone as a reminder and resource can help ensure your points don’t lose out to the antics of the cat.
Whiteboard animation - your new remote onboarding assistant
Whiteboard animation is ready and waiting to become your training assistant in all of these areas, but like the hiring of any new assistant - it’s important to check the references.
The first reference is a big one - a series of animated academic lectures which has had over 100,000,000 views. The series in question is the RSA Animates and as the studio behind it, we are very proud of the reach and success it has had. Our brief was to make a series of ‘talking head’ lectures more engaging, including speakers such as Sir Ken Robinson, Dan Pink, Carol Dweck, Ha Joon Chang and Dave Coplin. We pioneered and applied the whiteboard animation process to these lectures and made the ideas they discussed accessible, engaging and entertaining for a new and much broader audience.
The second reference focuses on the effectiveness of whiteboard animation videos as an educational tool. The Chinese University of Hong Kong conducted research into the benefits of whiteboard animation videos for students studying a common core science general education (GE) course. We were very happy to read their findings:
an average of 59.9% of students watched the animations before tutorials and in general they did better than those who hadn’t. The research paper we linked to above has information on grade differences
92.1% of students who watched the animations said they were helpful in gaining knowledge
92.7% of students said the animations were helpful in understanding texts and clarifying concepts
86.8% of students said the animations were helpful in tutorial studies
86.2% of the students agreed that learning materials in the form of whiteboard animation are more interesting than lecture videos
Getting remote onboarding right makes a big difference to the experience of new staff settling into their role and the company. It also allows you to ensure that your new hires are prepared and ready as begin to contribute to your organisation and its success. By combining engagement, entertainment and accessibility, whiteboard videos are able to tackle any subject, from the most dry to the most complex.
We are passionate about whiteboard animation and their ability to democratise information. As we move towards a more remote working world, remote onboarding is becoming more and more important and whiteboard animation is ready to help you hone and deliver your process. And once your process is in place, these videos can become assets that help cohort after cohort of new employees to develop an understanding of your culture, history and the processes that allow you to achieve success.
We’d love to talk to you about your needs and way a whiteboard video could help you, book your discovery call today!
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