Your Training Sucks and You Know It
Let me tell you something you already know but won't admit. Your training programme is garbage. Your employees sit through it, nod politely, and forget everything by next week.
And you keep doing the same thing. Year after year. Same boring slides. Same long sessions. Same terrible results.
Wake up. It's 2024. Your team has Netflix, YouTube, and TikTok in their pockets. They're used to consuming content that's engaging, visual, and actually worth their time. Then you hit them with a PowerPoint from 2008 and wonder why nothing sticks.
The Brutal Truth About Memory
Here's a fact that should scare you. People forget 70% of new information within 24 hours. Not a month. Not a week. One day.
So that three hour training session you're so proud of? It's basically worthless by Tuesday morning. You wasted everyone's time. You wasted company money. And nothing changed.
But here's what really gets me. You know this. You've sat through terrible training yourself. You remember how mind numbing it was. How little you retained. Yet you're doing the exact same thing to your team.
The research is crystal clear. When people watch a video, they remember 95% of the content. When they read text, retention drops to 10%. This isn't opinion. This is science. And you're ignoring it.
I hear the same excuses every time. Video is too expensive. We don't have the budget. Our industry is different. We've always done it this way.
All rubbish. Every single excuse.
You think video is expensive? Calculate what bad training costs you. Employee turnover because people feel lost. Mistakes that could have been prevented. Time wasted fixing problems that proper training would have stopped.
That's expensive. Professional video training is an investment that pays back immediately.
Digital Communication Is How People Learn Now
Your employees are 75% more likely to watch a video than read a document. This isn't because they're lazy. It's because video works with how their brains function.
When someone watches a training video, multiple parts of their brain activate. They're seeing demonstrations. Hearing explanations. Following stories. Feeling emotions. All of this creates stronger memory pathways.
Text? It's just words on a screen. One dimensional. Boring. Easy to forget.
And here's the thing that really matters. Your team actually wants to learn. They want to be good at their jobs. They want to grow. But you're giving them tools from 1995 and expecting 2024 results.
Microlearning Changes the Game
Stop with the marathon training sessions. Nobody can focus for three hours straight. It's torture. And it doesn't work.
Break your content into two to five minute videos. One topic per video. Clear. Focused. Done.
This isn't about short attention spans. It's about how the brain processes information. Microlearning improves retention by 80%. Eighty percent. That's not a minor improvement. That's transformational.
Your people can watch a quick video before their shift. During a break. When they actually need the information. Just in time learning beats just in case learning every single time.
Stories Beat Data Every Day
You love your facts and figures. I get it. But nobody remembers statistics. They remember stories.
Tell someone five safety rules, they'll forget four by tomorrow. Show them a video story about someone who ignored safety protocols and paid the price? They'll remember that forever.
This is why digital communication through video works so well. You can show real scenarios. Real people facing real challenges. Your team sees themselves in those situations. They learn not just what to do, but why it matters.
Most training is just information dumping. Here are the rules. Here are the procedures. Memorise this. It's lazy. And it fails.
Animation Versus Live Action
People get stuck on this question. Should we use animation or real people?
Wrong question. Ask what serves your goal.
Animation is perfect for complex concepts. Technical processes. Abstract ideas. Situations that are dangerous or impossible to film. Plus you can update animated content easily when things change.
Live action wins for people skills. Leadership training. Customer service. Anything requiring emotional connection and trust. Real faces matter.
Smart companies use both. They match the format to the content. They're not married to one approach.
Over 70% of South African households access the Internet through mobile devices. Your training needs to work on phones. Period.
If your videos don't work on a small screen, you've already lost. Optimise for mobile first. Everything else second.
And think about data costs. Not everyone has unlimited data. Compress your files. Offer different quality options. Let people download on WiFi and watch later.
This isn't extra. It's basic. You're in South Africa. Act like it.
One training session never works. Ever. The forgetting curve destroys single exposure learning.
Video lets you build a system. Initial training video. Follow up a week later. Another one a month later. Each repetition strengthens memory.
This is how real learning happens. Not in one big dump. Through repeated exposure over time. Small chunks. Regular reinforcement. That's what moves information into long term memory.
The Investment That Pays Back
Professional video production costs money upfront. But you use it thousands of times. You update sections without starting over. You deploy across every location instantly.
Compare that to flying trainers around. Booking venues. Taking people off the floor for hours. Doing the same session twenty times. Video scales. Traditional training doesn't.
And video gives you data. Who watched what. Where did they drop off. What needs improvement. You can measure everything. Adjust based on real information. Get better over time.
Look, I'm not here to make you feel good. Your current training approach is failing. The numbers prove it. Your team's performance proves it.
You have two choices. Keep doing what's comfortable and get the same bad results. Or change how you approach training and actually see improvement.
Video based digital communication works. The research is clear. The results are measurable. This isn't theory. Companies doing this right are destroying their competition.
Your employees deserve better than death by PowerPoint. They deserve training that respects their time and actually helps them perform.
And honestly? You deserve better too. You're investing time and money in training. You should see real returns. Changed behaviour. Improved performance. Measurable results.
The tools exist. The proof exists. What's missing is your decision to do something different.
Stop talking about it. Stop making excuses. Build a real video training system. Work with people who know what they're doing. Measure the results. Adjust and improve.
Your competition might already be doing this. They're building better trained teams. Creating actual competitive advantage. While you're still clicking through slides.
The choice is yours. But the clock is ticking. And every day you wait is another day your team forgets what you tried to teach them.
