Corporate training videos are useful tools when new employees join a company and go through their initial group orientation. And when hiring individuals with different backgrounds, cultures, and abilities, adding captions and transcripts to those training videos provides all employees with total access to the material.
Too Much Information to Remember
New hires often can find the copious amounts of information thrown at them to be overwhelming, and it’s easy to see how some of that information can be forgotten or overlooked. Research shows that, on average, people will forget about 50 percent of presented information — a number that shoots up to about 70 percent within 24 hours and almost 90 percent after a week. However, companies that provide multiple modalities in communicating information to employees can see retention rates go up.
People learn by reading, hearing, and/or doing. New hires already are hearing the training videos, so captioning or providing transcripts for these sessions reinforces the content via the written word and reaches those individuals who are visual learners.
Don’t Let Nerves Get in the Way
For some, starting a new job can be an intimidating life event, bringing with it a lot of excitement, nervousness, and uncertainty. These feelings can become amplified as new hire training begins not only due to the volume of information presented, but also because of its newness and unfamiliarity. Some people in this situation might be uncomfortable asking questions and would rather wait to see if they will eventually pick it up.
Another benefit of including captions and transcripts on training videos is that they help eliminate the uncertainties that one feels when they didn’t hear (or understand) the information upon first viewing. Captions are created through transcriptions, and the transcriptions can be distributed to all those involved in the training. Captions essentially provide the tools needed to succeed during the trainings and long after.
Different People with Different Skill Levels
Employee training and orientation sessions often include groups of people from different professional backgrounds, with some being more skilled and knowledgeable than others. And, when everyone is learning the same information, there are always those individuals who “didn’t quite catch that.”
Questions and conversations sometimes can take away from the training, especially when the discussion moves on to unrelated topics. And, when side conversations are going on, retaining information becomes even more challenging. Captioning your live training sessions provides new hires the opportunity to go back and read the information that was covered during the training.
Delivering Captions Effectively
Captions can be provided offline, live, and/or by video through one of the most commonly offered services being in-person or remote “Communication Access Realtime Translation” (CART).
In-person CART features an on-site captioner who sits in on the training session and creates captions just as they would for a television show. The captioner can share their screen, and captions appear as discussions are happening. Remote CART involves a captioner listening to a training lecture via IP audio (such as Skype) and quickly sending captions to a dedicated URL, so that people can follow along in real time.
No matter how you choose to deliver the captions, everyone benefits from them in some way, shape, or form.
As professionals, we all want to do the best we can at our jobs, and employers want the best people working for them. Communication, both internal and external, is critical to any business venture, and VITAC’s live and offline services allow all employees to participate. Why would any business want to deal with communication issues when they can be avoided by simply captioning training sessions?
VITAC, the country’s largest provider of closed captioning needs, offers a wide variety of services and solutions to help businesses achieve successful trainings for all individuals. Click here for more information.