First impressions matter! Onboarding is a defining point in a new employee’s journey with a company. Every HR team worth its salt will agree that a good onboarding process should clearly introduce company culture, answer doubts, and set employees up for success at their new company.

As the business landscape has shifted to include hybrid employees and fully remote teams, HR teams have started relying on virtual resources, all-day Teams meetings or funky Zoom Q&A sessions, among others as a part of an updated onboarding journey.

But what does the most effective onboarding journey look like today? Try video! Studies across demographics, industries, and age groups have proven that users retain a staggering amount of information in video form when compared to simple text. 

Read on to understand how to design new-age video onboarding, especially if you’re a startup.  

How to get startup video onboarding right

Create an onboarding video series

Break your content into meaningful, easy-to-understand chunks in a video series. A content-heavy video is best understood (and retained) when the information is presented in bite-sized pieces. 

If your startup needs to onboard employees at scale, it’s a good idea to create a video onboarding strategy to define what content should be in the series.

Some key video content can be—“About [Company]”, “Why Work Here?”, “Meet the Management”, “Life at [Company]—among other pillars.

Instead of creating a long video of these topics blended together, it’s smarter to trim and edit videos as parts of a video series.

Make sure to test and evaluate your video content by asking yourself the question, “if I was an employee watching this, how excited would I be to work here?

Opt for branding and creative designs

The visual design and layout of your onboarding videos are just as important as the content of the onboarding material.

A good video can include screen recordings, facecam recordings, uncluttered design, clear-to-read text supers, captions for accessibility and interspersed images to create visual interest. Don’t forget to add your brand logo in the top-right corner or use your custom fonts to make it consistent with other marketing material.

If you’re looking for free templates, color palettes, design ideas, and layouts, you can check out various design apps. You can also take it to the next level by consulting an expert to create a design layout that is clear and engaging. 

Showcase corporate culture

If you’re a startup, company culture has to be showcased well in your onboarding process. Culture is one of the key reasons that motivates employees to join startups, so make sure to maintain their excitement when you onboard them.

Company culture is defined as the attitudes and values of a company towards its employees. A positive company culture leads to happier employees.

When creating videos for onboarding, make sure to include what it is that makes your start up a great place to work in. Highlight aspects like employee growth programs, bonding programs, mental health initiatives, diversity and inclusivity initiatives and more.

Plan your video around such questions and it will make an impact on every individual watching. Be cautious that none of your videos showcase performative activism though.

Personalize welcome videos

Every new hire is looking for something that is created especially for them in the onboarding process. Upcoming startups can leverage their smaller team sizes to go the extra mile and add another personal touch to their onboarding. Why not create a personalized welcome video from their manager on their first day?

This can be shot easily using a screen and webcam recorder.

Other useful onboarding ideas

Use an Interactive Onboarding Software

Goodbye mountains of paperwork and printed booklets! One of the most-used software in the WFH-era is Interactive Onboarding Software. 

Various websites and apps enable HR to create interactive and streamlined processes for new hires. Companies now drive effective onboarding and change management processes using software like Whatfix, Eduflow, Microsoft Teams, Bamboo HR, and more.

Set up help contacts for new employees

Some startups have peer-to-peer guidance systems where employees guide their new colleagues in the workplace. You can also appoint a “buddy” or touchpoint for every new hire to have their questions answered.

Get started with video onboarding

Don’t forget to test your video content out to identify areas for improvement in your content. When you’re ready to start making videos, try an easy online video editor like Clipchamp.

Good luck!