How To Create Onboarding Videos for Employees at Scale

Onboarding someone into a new role via email makes for an ”eh” first impression 🥱

And, according to research, that means you’re in for lackluster productivity and a higher employee turnover rate.

If you know you can do better, but don’t have the time or energy… A) you’re not alone and B) you can easily create the videos you need with the help of AI.

And get this: You can personalize the video to each employee in minutes. No re-recording, no re-editing, nada. And no more lengthly introductory Zoom meetings.

In today’s blog post, we’ll demonstrate how you, like others, can effectively onboard new hires remotely, generate short videos in just a click, and even snag a Net Promotor Score of 100 from new employees.

Let’s dive in 👇

The goal of an onboarding video

The main goal of video onboarding is to help new employees get up to speed on the company's culture, policies, and procedures.

The video format facilitates information retention as it’s more engaging than text-based resources, and can be referred back to any time as employees are learning the ropes.

How the right tools can make video onboarding viable

Antisel, a scientific equipment and services company, was struggling to keep the attention of new employees with their lackluster onboarding experience.

Typically, they sent new hires various PDF and Powerpoint presentations by email and booked occasional Zoom calls. Not exactly the “we’re excited you’ve joined the team, let's get you started off on the right foot” message they were hoping to send!

Their HR team, led by Michael Miliopoulos, looked into onboarding video options to upgrade the process.

But the speed, flexibility, and scalability challenges that came with a film crew made creating video content seem unrealistic.

A few Google searches and conversations later, Antisel found Synthesia’s AI video maker.

Using Synthesia, they created a series of onboarding videos that:

• Got a fantastic NPS of 100 from their 18 new hires who loved the welcome video
• Reduced the onboarding time of new hires by 50%.
• Won several awards for best employee experience and most innovative use of technology in HR.

In the following six steps, we’ll break down the strategy Antisel took to use videos for the first time and provide you with some best practices that outline how to replicate it in your business.

Step #1: Find a video-making tool

With 224.4M people watching videos in the US alone, it’s clear we watch videos all the time. And they’re a LOT of different styles of video. From animation videos to live-action videos, there’s a whole range of different types of training videos.

Onboarding training videos, however, present a unique challenge: They must serve a diverse range of employees with new roles, and often in different languages.

Synthesia is a great tool for onboarding videos because it’s packed full of time-saving features like diverse AI avatars, customizable templates, and 120+ voiceovers and languages.

Check out the video below to see what an onboarding video made with Synthesia can look like in action:

Step #2: Choose a template

Templates will give you a fast and easy start for creating quality videos, even with no prior design experience.

Browse through Synthesia’s video examples and templates library to find an option that best communicates your message.

Popular options include this 5-step process outline template and this orientation video template.

Choose your template, duplicate it, and you’re ready to customize the basic colors and branding. The template you duplicate will show up as a collection of slides you can manually edit one by one.

Step #3: Create a script

Either follow the template script word for word and make minimal edits or make significant changes by adding in important information as you see fit.

The script text matches up to each slide in the video template and generates a voiceover and AI avatar.

You can modify that text anytime and re-generate the voice-over, which makes personalization and translation easy.

Some great tips for customizing your script:

• Greet the new hire by their name.
• Share some relevant company numbers.
• Introduce the schedule of their first day of work.
• List the steps they should expect as part of the onboarding process.

Step #4: Insert your script into Synthesia and pick an avatar

This is where things become super easy, and you begin to see the power of an AI video creation tool.

Add the text you wrote in step #3 into the Synthesia STUDIO script box.

Once you click ‘Generate’, your AI avatar will speak whatever you insert in that box. To preview how it will sound, hit the 'Play' button.

(Note: You can only preview the voice, the avatar won’t be moving with the lines yet because you haven’t generated the video at this stage.)

There are 85+ AI avatars you can choose from in various demographics and 120+ different voices and accents. Mix and match until you reach the desired effect.

Step #5: Add pictures, screen recordings, and other visuals

Insert visuals for the voiceover and customize the video with brand elements.

The best way to do this is to pair the audio with a graphic representation that makes it less intimidating and easier to remember while giving the eye something to lock on.

Sharing company stats? Insert them visually into the video. Same for any timeline you mention, a list of deliverables, or the timetable for the onboarding stages.

Teaching a new tool? Insert video clips of screen recordings.

And speaking of human touch and personalization, you can even add a photo of the employee you’re onboarding.

Step #6: Generate a great onboarding video

By now, you've put together the main parts of your onboarding video.

Time to generate the actual video, so you can see your avatar in action.

Click the ‘Generate’ - button that's it.

Create your onboarding videos for employees today

Antisel’s onboarding video was certainly effective.

Christos, a fresh hire in his first week, was so impressed by the introduction he got from Alex, the charming AI avatar, that he said,

“Alex made me feel welcome before I even set foot in my new job, and the anxiousness of the first day turned into anticipation.”

Looking to get the same first impressions from your new team members?

Create your first AI video for free and transform your entire onboarding process with minimum effort and expenses while generating maximum employee satisfaction.