How to Improve Employee Training with Visual Communication Techniques

They need visual communication.

If you’re not sure what that means yet, fear not! We’re here to break it down. If you want the long story short…it’s time to ditch the giant handbook.

From explainer videos to custom illustrations, visual communication techniques will supercharge your training efforts. This means helping your team absorb information faster, retain it longer, and stay engaged in the process.

Whether you’re onboarding new hires, training volunteers, or rolling out a new policy across departments, visual tools are an effective and affordable choice.

We know because we’ve seen the proof: Dozens of organizations rely on our studio to develop, refresh, and expand their library of branded internal communication content.

What is Visual Communication?

You see visual communication every day in the world: from the advertisements we watch on screens, to the book covers or pamphlets we hold in our hands.

We love how Techsmith defines visual communication, as “…the practice of using visual elements to get a message across, inspire change, or evoke emotion.” At our studio, we accomplish all of these things with custom branded animation.

Through the combination of aural and visual cues, our brains can take in more – faster – and retain it better. You’re far more likely to learn and remember information from a whiteboard animation than text. Why? Because you processing the same concept on several different levels, simultaneously.

Don’t get us wrong: there are always going to be use cases for content like text-based handbooks or detailed policy documents. With that in mind, we know science backs visual communication if your goal is audience engagement and retention.

Let’s dive into some of the ways we’ve seen it done effectively.

Visual Communication Simplifies the Complex

Visual communication is especially effective for demystifying complex concepts.

In the last decade and a half, we’ve empowered tons of clients in accomplishing highly complicated goals – from internal memos about healthcare benefits to PSAs about complex legislation.

Every video we produce includes a dedicated deep-dive into your mission, goals, and branding by our production team to ensure your message is effectively translated – and clarified – with video.

Visual Communication is Scalable

Develop once. Train again and again and again.

Scalability is one of the greatest gains of using Visual Communication techniques to improve employee training. Animated video has the power to reshape the infastructure of your trainings, replacing or bolstering in-person information sessions with branded, culturally specific training videos that can be repurposed across locations and onboarding cycles.

Compared to print materials and other media forms like Live-Action video, animation is incredibly affordable to update and bring forward into the evolutions of your organization.

Need to update policy information annually? Did the company adopt a new logo? Don’t break the bank to stay aligned with the times.

Swapping out sections and re-styling animations is cost-effective, easy to do, and most importantly: quick. Our studio commits to long standing partnerships with all our clients, and our door is always open to support your vision as your team steps into the future.

In a nutshell? Visual communication for content is more sustainable over time.

Need more convincing, or want to run it up the flagpole? We wrote a blog on pitching explainer videos to your decision-makers.

Customize Visual Communication to Your Brand Goals

Some organizations may also have a need for something more robust than a single video, which couldn’t effectively cover the complexity or quantity of training information.

Other clients come to us with a handful of smaller, separate ideas that are related, and which need to be housed under the same umbrella – but how?

Our advice is the same: create a series of animated videos.

A video series is able to break down the information into digestible chunks that are much easier for the viewer to not only watch, but truly absorb. We offer a discount for video projects including a series of 3 or more videos.

Visual Communication Makes Trainings Accessible and Inclusive

The future is now with visual communication.

With translations, subtitles, closed captions, audio descriptions, and mobile-friendly formats, the challenge of global accessability doesn’t seem so insurmountable.

Video communication offers equal messaging and opportunities to workers all over the world, including remote workers, speakers of different languages, and employees with visual impairments or who are deaf.

Next Day Animations proudly offers affordable translation packages for our clients, for common and rare languages. We partner with professional voiceover artists across the globe, furthering our ability to match your custom script with a narration that audiences can hear themselves reflected in.

The Process: How Do I Begin Improving Employee Training with Visual Communication?

We’d like to walk you through a day in the life of our clients. Let’s take one last look at Visual Communication by asking the question, “What does it look like to use visual communication techniques to develop training content?”

We insist that both clarity and simplicity contribute to the award-winning customer experience that comes with a Next Day Animations product.

We get to work after a full-roster meeting with your team on discovery. Most of our time will be spent understanding the mission, vision and values behind your organization and the project at hand. Then comes the hard work from our scriptwriters, illustrators, and producers. Once the first version of your video is ready, you’ll have a chance to weigh in on what’s next.

At this stage, we kick off a round of revisions and you will begin to really see the magic of your video. Two iterative rounds of revisions are included to ensure perfection. It’s important to us that clients aren’t taking on extra work, which is why we prioritize a fabulous free and web-based tool called Frame.io for asycnhronous – and super specific – video editing communication between our team and your’s.

At Next Day Animations, we specialize in custom animation that brings stories to life with personality, emotion, and expert craftsmanship. If you’re ready to explore the best animation style for your project, reach out to our team today!