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Optimising Induction Training:

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Reduce Costs, Improve Quality andTalent Retention

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Optimising Induction Training

It’s an all too common problem. Employees and contractors are always quick to complain that their company has a really boring induc-tion process and that many were overwhelmed with information when they started.

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Optimising Induction Training: Reduce Costs, Improve Quality and Talent Retention

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And according to “Onboarding: Speeding the Way to Productivity” by Taleo Research, they are not alone. In this international study, less than half of respon-dents (48%) were satisfied with the onboarding process at their company. While more than half (54%) said that onboarding across their organisation was inconsis-tent.

Many companies struggle to provide effective and engaging induction training.

Managers eager to improve the induction experience of new recruits and contractors recognize that there is much more to success than simply getting new employ-ees to read through a lengthy training manual or sit through a PowerPoint presentation.

For many companies, the challenge is that they are not sure that people are doing the required reading or that they even understand the information. Some organiza-tions also fear that their trainers might be cutting corners in training.

Why is the Induction Process so important to Company Success?

Research by Recruitment Solutions in 2007, found that on average, companies experienced 47% of new employee turnover after 90 days, with 60% of these companies citing improving their induction as a priority area of investment.

While research by the Aberdeen Group, discovered that 86% of respondents agreed that new hires make the decision to stay within the first six months of the job.

Observant managers start to be concerned about their induction process when they notice:

Costly errors from staff undertaking tasks incorrectly.

Disputes between staff about the correct way to undertake a task resulting in low productivity and a longer time required to do basic procedures.

Incidents and injuries that are attributable to tasks been undertaken wrongly.

A high turnover rate of new staff or contractors.

Grumbles and complaints made by contractors when they are told they need to read through an induction manual.

Long induction lengths that are not improving the quality of training.

Staff that understand little about the company’s values and vision.

First impressions aren’t easy to erase. And a high quality induction training program combined with a smooth onboarding process ensures that new talent stays around for longer.

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Research in the UK by the Corporate Leadership Coun-cil suggests that an engaged employee will result in an average of 20% higher levels of performance and an 87% less risk of leaving.

According to Dr Judith Brown, at McNeil Technologies, organizations that have good orientation programs get new people up to speed faster, have better alignment between what the employees do and what the organiza-tion needs them to do and have lower turnover rates.

1. Improves talent retention

2. Increases productivity

3. Faster ROI on new recruits

4. Better staff alignment to company values

5. A reduction in incidents and injuries

6. Improved safety culture

7. Reduction in errors

8. Reduction in training costs

8 Benefits of a Good Induction process:

When High Quality Training Matters – The Importance of Visuals

Society is rapidly changing. How we interact and communicate with each other is no longer face to face.

Rising popularity of websites such as Facebook, You-Tube and Twitter show a new world of communication where short phrases, visual information and interaction is important in our daily life.

YouTube is now the second most popular search engine after Google, with a large majority of searches being for “how to” videos.

In a recent Australian Financial Review Boss article, it was cited that an important trend over the next decade will be the shift from words to images in communica-tion.

Rather than bombard people with an avalanche of reading material, people prefer visual representation of data. And they even learn it better.

So to future-proof and update training materials, now more than ever, there is growing importance for compa-nies to use visuals to aid in learning. And lots of them.


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Although, onboarding appears to be a purely transactional activity, it can be a strategic process that goes straight to the bottom line. How? Remember that new staff start out as liabilities while they learn how to use their skills and experience to make a positive contribu-tion. The more quickly new employ-ees get up to speed, the sooner they can begin contributing to your bottom line regardless of role or department.

Onboarding: Speeding the Way to Productivity,Taleo Research, 2006.

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In fact, studies by educational researchers found that 83% of human learning occurs visually. Visually rich training materials keep the eyes busy and therefore, the brain more alert and active to learn information.


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After all, we remember:

“Something is happening. We are becoming a visually mediated society. For many, understanding of the world is being accomplished, not through words, but by reading images.”

Paul Martin Lester, Syntactic Theory of Visual Communication

What we read What we hear What we see What we bothsee and hear

10% of what we read

20% of what we hear

30% of what we see

50% of what we both hear and see

Children are a good example of the power of visual learning. After all, they enjoy reading books that have lots of colour and pictures.

Engaging induction training materials need to include photos, diagrams, colour and video to maximize learner effectiveness.

Safety Matters: It’s time to walk the talk

A recent report from Safe Work Australia found that part-timers suffered 74 injuries per million hours worked versus 35 for full-timers.

According to Doug Moran from the ACTU, the reasons given for this are “less induction, less training and less supervision, as workers are less aware of potential hazards in their workplace”.

Professor Patrick Hudson from Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands recently estimated that companies lose 10% of their annual turnover, as a result of poor safety costing billions in lost production and flow-on effects.

Poor induction training can actually cause employees and contractors to undervalue safety, resulting in a poor safety culture that can be difficult to change and more accident prone.

High quality training that makes new starters and contractors aware of the importance of safety right from the start ensures a high performance safety culture that reduces the risk of injuries.

‘‘ ‘‘Our training manual was really boring. I’m no graphic artist. So I put it together as best I could. I was impressed that it had headings and para-graphs. But there were no pictures. It was just black and white. It looked really bland and contractors seemed to look really disappointed when they were told they had to read through it.

Site Manager, Mining Industry

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The Importance of Video in Training

For over forty years, training videos have been used by companies to train staff on their processes and company culture. Yet, the majority of organizations are unaware of this powerful training tool.

Video is a highly visual medium that includes audio for extra effectiveness. It brings induction training materials to life.

Research has found that learners more easily understand and recall new material presented in video that allow participants to both hear and see the information.

This dual-encoding process reinforces information in multiple brain areas, thereby increasing the chances that the material will be stored in long-term memory.

And videos can go where trainers can't. For example, if you need to demonstrate how the back gets injured by a manual handling injury, a medical animation video that goes inside the body makes information much easier to comprehend.

Why are Training Videos Important to your Com-pany?

Gone are the days of bad hair, bad music and painfully acted out scenes in training videos. Induction videos were once seen as entertaining diversions for staff. And we don’t mean that in a good way.

Customised training videos that show your staff in their work uniform demonstrating processes at your premises are an ideal way to get buy-in from your workers.

Today, training videos that are professionally produced can be made into a modular format that allows for viewers to watch the whole video or to select a particular training area such as “Duty of Care” or “Arriving on Site”.

This easy to update format means that if changes to processes occur, it is fairly cost effective to revise. And the additions will not be noticeable.

It also makes it really easy to refresh staff on a particular topic of concern.

While once companies were limited to playing a VHS tape on a VHS player. Now, video can be playable online (through e-learning programs or on the intranet), DVD or on mobile devices. Accessibility is easy and affordable.

And a well crafted training video will often last five years. Or 10 years or more if your processes never change.

Research has found that a custom made video:


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Teaches the same amount of information taught by instructors in half or a third of the time.

Increases comprehension and retention of the subject matter by approximately 50% over printed material alone.

Commands the attention of the viewer and motivates them to learn more.

Provides faster rollout and take up of training.

Is more persuasive than written material which is perceived as less important and credible.

Ensures consistent trainingmessages are communicated.

Still shot of spine being injured from a manual handling injury taken from a medical animation video


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Decreasing the training length of inductions and improving training quality has real bottom line results derived from benefits including:


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The Business Case for Induction Training Videos

A Little Mistake that cost a Quarry $20,000 a year

Reduced time and effort from managers to train, so that they can spend their time on other important tasks.

Reducing the time and effort of learners to learn.

Reducing the time and effort of supervisors, so they no longer get bombarded with lots of questions from the new starter.

Providing more flexible training so that workers no longer need to be trained during overtime and contractors can get trained off-site.

Reduced time to get to competency.

Improved employee productivity and performance.

Improved employee retention.

Enhanced brand image.

Improved willingness/motivation to learn.

Ensuring staff get refreshed once a year.

Improved credibility of training materials.

Perhaps more difficult to quantify directly, additional benefits of induction training videos are:

All companies want their staff to work as productively as possible, in order to generate the best outcome.

We give workers lots of tools to make their jobs easier and quicker – computers, software programs, smart phones, printers, new production equipment and so on.

Yet, inductions are a repetitive task that managers are expected to undertake again and again and again. And depending upon how busy their site or office is, this can be many times a week.

The smart solution is to systemize the induction process, in order to reduce the training time and to stop ‘reinvent-ing the wheel’. Managers are then able to spend their hours on other important jobs that make much better use of their time and expertise. Most managers can find induction training a real burden, so lifting this responsibility will also help them to enjoy their job again.

So how much does repetitive training cost a company?

To calculate the cost, an analysis of the hours a manager is spending each month on inducting and refreshing is required.

Let’s take a look at a real example from Conundrum Holdings who have two quarries in Victoria.

After launching a custom made training video, they undertook 135 inductions at both sites in six months. Due to a 68% reduction in the training time, they have calculated that they are saving 1 hour a day or 5 hours a week of manager time.

In cost terms, their site managers are on $80 an hour so the 5 hour weekly saving is $400 or:

4 x $400 = $1,600 per month

$1,600 x 12 = $19,200 per year

This is an avoidable waste of money for a task that can be easily streamlined and reduced in duration, for much better training results.

‘‘ ‘‘Our factory site is the busiest in Australia and I have to induct 3-5 people a week. It can take 3 hours each time. Often, a senior manager from interstate will arrive and I will have to drop everything to induct him. It’s difficult for me to get through my other tasks and we’re really behind undertaking all the changes due to occur this quarter.

OHS Manager, Manufacturer

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The majority of companies are unaware of the high expense of face to face training. And most of the time it’s undertaken by managers who would prefer to be doing other work. Other work that generates revenue.


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Calculating the High Cost of Face to Face Train-ing versus Induction Training Videos

One of the prime advantages of a training video is that it will reduce the training length. Guaranteed.

For example, a 45 minute face to face induction process will get reduced to about 14 minutes with a training video. The cost savings of reducing training time down by 31 minutes can be enormous.

Let’s take a look at the costs of face to face training for a company that has to train 140 staff/contractors. Of these, 40 are new each year, while the remaining 100 undertake refresher training.

Training time is currently 45 minutes and two company trainers at two different sites undertake 1-2 inductions a week which is a total of 140 a year.

When it comes to training, you need to measure hard training costs (actual amount spent on training such as the training video or time by trainer and trainee) and soft costs (productivity).

Here is a cost comparison of the face-to-face training method versus the training video that is 14 minutes in length.

‘‘ ‘‘I really didn’t like having to do inductions. It just interrupts your work flow. Our site is really busy, so I was training people just about every day. I would have to tell them the same old things. It just seemed like a really poor use of my time.

OHS Manager, Food Manufacturer

Face to Face Training Method - Hard Costs

Training length 45 minutes

Trainer $24.67

(earning $65,000 pa)

New Starter $18.98


Total (140 staff) $43.65

Digicast Training Video - Hard Costs


Trainer $1.64


New Starter $5.82


Total (140 staff) $7.46

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Face to Face Training Method - Soft Costs

Annual revenue $10 million

Revenue per head $71,428

per annum


per week

% of productivity lost 50%

Time to train 60 minutes

Lost productivity count $570

per head

Total (140 staff) $79,787

Face to Face Training Method - Total Costs

Training (hard) $6,111

Productivity (soft) $79,787

Total $85,898

Digicast Training Video - Soft Costs

Annual revenue $10 million


per annum


per week

% of productivity lost 40%

Time to train 0.23 minutes

Lost productivity count $140

per head

Total (140 staff) $19,574

Digicast Training Video - Total Costs

Training (hard) $15,000 (video)

$1,045 (time)

Productivity (soft) $19,574

Total $35,620

Soft costs or productivity have been calculated based on the actual revenue of that particular company (or site). As a rule of thumb, every employee needs to bring in at least three times their salary for the ROI to be worth-while to the employer.

In this example, you can see that the cost to train 140 staff per year is $85,898 with the traditional face to face method.

If a video was used, the cost would be $35,620. This means that a training video pays for itself within five months. More importantly, it will generate real savings to the company and improve training quality.

But while you may get a return on your investment in your first year, it’s actually the cost savings over five years that make the ROI so appealing.


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Over a five year period, this company would actually save $311,392 which is a whopping 73%. This is about average. For organizations that undertake more than 140 inductions a year, the cost savings are massive.


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Clear Win

About Digicast Productions

Customized training videos present clear and signifi-cant benefits. The key advantages are that they reduce the time and cost to train, but still improve the training outcome.

With the need for more visual information to aid in learning and with a low cost per employee, training videos are an obvious choice for any company who really wishes to train their staff well and ensure they work productively over the long term.

Digicast Productions is a passionate producer of staff and customer training videos. Our uncompromising approach to producing training videos ensures that our clients receive highly optimised training videos and manuals that deliver significant training results. Thou-sands of staff each year worldwide are trained with Digicast training materials.

Find out more information about how a Digicast train-ing video can reduce your training time and costs and improve productivity. Call: 03 9696-4400

Email: [email protected]

Visit our website: www.digicast.com.au

Visit our blog: www.digicast.com.au/blog

A key attribute of top-performing induction training is that it is structured and systemized to reduce time spent training and administering.

Yet, at the same time it ensures that high quality and consistent training is always delivered. No matter where and by whom.

Face to face training still needs to be part of any induc-tion training program (eg: meet and greet), but by removing any repetitive information from the induction training and transforming this content into a training video it will:

Face to Face Training Method 5 years - Hard Costs


Hard $30,555

Soft $398,935

Total (140 staff) $429,490

Training Video 5 years - Hard Costs

Video length 14 minutes

Hard $15,000 +

$1,045 x 5

= $20,225

Soft $97,870

Total (140 staff) $118,098

Provide interesting visual information that aids in learning. Text based training manuals even with photos are unable to convey all of the information required in understanding.

Reduce the training time and free up the training manager (thereby, increasing morale).

Increase motivation to learn and improve the cred-ibility of the training materials.

Provide consistent training.

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