Video is one of the most powerful tools you can leverage to train, communicate and engage with your people. We went into why in last week’s blog. Missed it? Get up to speed here.
If you’re in a hurry, here’s the gist - video is so powerful because of the way it activates our brains.
→ Download Now: The Ultimate Onboarding Guide for On-Demand
Our propensity to retain knowledge when watching something is far higher than when reading (or hearing) alone. 95% of a message is remembered by a viewer when watching something, versus only 10% when the same thing is simply read.
Onboarding is a crucial window of opportunity in which to secure loyalty through sufficient engagement of a new hire. In on-demand and gig you have an especially short window in which to “wow”.
“Videos help recruitees get onboarded quicker and more efficiently” - Pete Sosnowski, Co-Founder of Zety
People may even forget they have registered to provide services through your app if you don’t give them sufficient incentive to get using it within the first week, and sufficient reward to get them to stay.
The link between bad onboarding and high churn is well established. 17% of companies lose new hires due to poor onboarding within 3 months.
But nowhere is churn worse than in on-demand - it’s astronomically high. Wall Street Journal estimated it to be as high as 500% a year. That’s 29x higher than in conventional workplaces.
Just improving retention by 1% improves your bottom line by about 7%. This makes retention more of a financial imperative than even acquisition. 
So now you know why video is essential, how can you make best use of it as an on-demand employer?
Let’s jump in...
5 video ideas for you to try
What do new hires need to be set up and ready to go from Day 1?
Cut through the noise and surface need-to-know type of information to begin with. Non-essential information can be addressed later.
“User onboarding is the process of increasing the likelihood that new users become successful when adopting your product” - Samuel Hulick
Be sure anything you make is broken down content into smaller, bite-sized chunks.
The ‘segmenting principle’ dictates content is best absorbed when broken down into learner-paced segments. Aim for multiple, short, single-concept videos that run for less than 6 minutes.
1. A welcome video
In on-demand the market is saturated. You are up against many companies, providing the same service, that are all equally as easy to sign up to. There is no “duty of loyalty” as exists in a conventional 9-5 job either - i.e. no rules on how many competitors a new hire can provide their services to at once.
On-demand new hires rarely stay in a single job for more than 3 months. How can you beat these odds?
A vital way to differentiate yourself is by creating a personalised onboarding experience for new hires.
A ‘welcome video’ is the perfect opportunity for you to stand out from the crowd. And it's a perfect solution for a dispersed workforce, where only 48% report being ‘very satisfied’ in their roles, on account of isolation.
Creating a welcome video featuring your CEO is a low effort, easily implemented change to your onboarding strategy, that has a high impact on retention. It provides an opportunity to show off your company culture, convey your values and mission.
Apple send out daily video messages to their whole organisation. These videos feature the need-to-know updates of the day from senior management like Angela Ahrendts, Senior Vice President of Retail. Apple also happen to boast nearly 90% employee retention.
These types of video instill purpose through creating a feeling of unity. This motivates, improving productivity and loyalty. They also align vision. An aligned vision is essential in order to achieve Workforce Success, and can be hard to maintain. Especially when you’re dealing with a global, dispersed workforce.
Online examination preparation platform Magoosh ran a test. They sent welcome messages to half of new users, and no welcome message to the other half. Those that received the welcome messages were 17% more likely to stay on using the platform than those who didn’t.
Here’s an example of a short, engaging welcome video created for Adobe’s new hires that features a message from their CEO:
2. Filmed testimonials
Successful onboarding is all about creating a penny-drop (“aha”) moment in a new hire.
It has to be centred around enabling their success - showing them what they get can from working for you, and setting them up to be able to achieve this as quickly (and smoothly) as possible.
According to data from mobile intelligence startup Quettra, the average app loses 77% of its users after 3 days, and 90% within 30 days.
Imagine your new hire is replacing someone who is a seasoned pro in the role. What are the top three pieces of need-to-know knowledge their predecessor would give them, to get them up and running as quickly as possible?
Regardless of whether your new hire is actually replacing someone, filling a brand new role, or - as is the case in the on-demand sector - joining a workforce who are carrying out the same or similar jobs, create a “handover” video for them.
This type of video is best shot from a second person perspective, i.e. when someone is speaking directly into the camera at an imagined audience.
If possible, get an actual peer to participate in the creation of this. In this video you could cover a topic like “how to provide outstanding customer service that guarantees a 5-star rating”, for example.
Not only will this help to build a feeling of community (which is paramount in on-demand where your people are vulnerable to loneliness). But the team member you have chosen will feel rewarded and recognised by being asked to participate, strengthening their engagement and loyalty.
New hires are also more receptive to knowledge gained from a peer - when seeking to learn a new skill, 55% turn first to their peers. 96% report improved knowledge retention. Two birds, one stone!
3. Where things are located
It doesn’t matter if your new hire will be coming into a physical office or is a remote worker - both need to know where to go to find things.
If your new hire will be commuting into a shared, physical office space, you can film a first person perspective video tour of your office space for them.
Where is the kitchen located? Where are the fire exits? Here is a sped up snippet of this type of video we created for our own new starters at eduMe:
Doing this will familiarise them with the space they are joining, empowering them to be more confident and comfortable as possible on the first day. It also saves you time - you don’t have to dedicate hours to orienteering sessions over and over again. Once the video is ready once, it’s ready forever.
In on-demand, “where to find things” translates to “how to navigate your app”- or product accessibility and understanding.
Hubspot found 60% of people churned after failing to understand how to use a new feature in their product.
Explain the interface of your app - whether that’s your own app or a third party app you’ll be using to communicate with them - to them. Really break it down to the basics - no micro-detail is too obvious.
For example, if your new hire is an on-demand driver, where would they need to click to accept their first trip?
Instead of a first or second person perspective video, use a narrated screen capture for these kinds of videos. This will mirror your new hire’s experience opening up their app and highlight each step they need to take.
This video has been created by a contractor working for ride-hailing app Lyft. Its value to new hires in on-demand is clear by the amount of views it has amassed (over 50,000), and the fact the channel it has been published to - one dedicated exclusively to this type of content - has an equal number of subscribers.
Internalise this type of content on your learning platform, to the mutual benefit of you and your new hires.
💡 Remember 💡 The greater the barrier to a new hire’s success, the more likely it is they’ll churn.
4. Useful links and FAQs
Who or where does a new hire need to go to have their questions addressed? Again, this is relevant for both deskless and deskbound new hires.
Remote new hires in the on-demand sector specifically will need to know where they need to go, in your app or on your website to:
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Get up and running
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Get paid
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Reach your customer support team
So address questions like:
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How do I access our learning platform?
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How do I input my bank details?
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Where is the Help Centre or support portal located?
Again, screen capture is most effective for conveying this kind of information.
You can follow this up post-onboarding with more in-depth troubleshooting, by adding ‘Learn More’ buttons to your Help Centre articles. These ‘Learn Mores’ could link to eduMe lessons, for example, to provide further learning where required.
💡 Tip 💡 Creating a comprehensive FAQ page minimises the weight on your support team’s shoulders.
5. Benefits and company culture
Does your company offer its people a health or education budget? Bonuses? A pension scheme or health insurance? Rewards for achieving and maintaining a certain in-app rating? Or for completing a certain number of consultations, deliveries or trips?
If you offer any benefits - whether those take the form of real life perks or in-app rewards, like badges - let new hires know what those are, and any steps needed to activate or begin claiming these.
New hires are as interested in how you can serve them as you are in how they can serve you.
That said, it’s not all about tangible rewards. You may offer your people shares in the company, or catered lunches, but research has shown that employees value feeling a sense of purpose over even compensation.
In Glassdoor’s 2019 Mission and Culture Survey, 73% said they would not apply to a company whose values did not align with their own.
Deloitte also found “mission-driven” companies have 40% higher levels of retention, and tend to be first in their market segment, and “mission-driven” employees are 54% more likely to stay in a job.
How do you become “mission-driven”? An introductory video during onboarding, that connects your company culture, vision and mission is one way to do this.
When you give people purpose, you elicit a level of engagement and commitment that no financial compensation can create.
If you'd like to see how you can use eduMe's mobile-first platform to deliver the perfect onboarding training to your employees, freelancers or clients, book in a personal demo.
