
When most people hear the term "corporate training material," the first thing that comes to mind is long and boring training sessions, mind-numbing bullet points, or even an outdated PowerPoint.
The truth is, most corporate training materials are exactly that. That’s why adding updated visuals and designs is so important. So much so that the lack of their presence in your training can deter employees from learning and retaining information and may even result in the avoidance of the training altogether.
But it doesn't have to be that way. Using visuals helps to simplify complex information, maintain attention and drive engagement while catering to the diverse learning styles of your employees.
In this article, we'll show you actionable tips, for non-designers or beginners alike, on how to develop stunning corporate training material with the use of visuals and design.
The use of visuals in your training material isn't as simple as pasting a pretty picture just for the sake of it. It’s a method of teaching that appeals to visual learners.
A Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience study found that 65% of the population are visual learners. This means there's a possibility that the majority of your training employees are visual learners.
In addition, a study by Videoscribe discovered that visual learning methods are 83% more effective than text alone. Visuals not only engage the learners but also help them grasp concepts quickly by stimulating their imagination and their cognitive capabilities.
You don't have to choose between visually stunning or educational training material. You can have both! It's all about balancing the two to provide an exceptional corporate training experience.
Here are reasons visuals matter in corporate training and development.
To learn more about some content training examples and how to use them to achieve excellent corporate training, read this guide.
Now that you understand why you need to use visuals in your corporate training material, it’s time to discuss the “how". How do you design corporate training materials?
In this section, we’ll discuss ways to incorporate visual learning into your training to maximize results and corporate training tools you can use as well. These methods are standards for learning and development coaches or trainers and should be a part of your training content as well.
The last thing you want is for the data or statistics crucial to your training to be overlooked or misunderstood in your corporate training material. That's where data visualization comes into play. Data visualization is one of the best ways to make data easy to digest, identify patterns, and make it more memorable.
First, what is data visualization? It's the graphical representation of data that makes it easy to comprehend, analyze and present.
Second, how do you incorporate data visualization into training content? Start by using data visualization to share essential data to fill knowledge gaps in your training. This includes using data visualization to:
Data visualization can take many forms, from line graphs to pie charts to heat maps to infographics. The key to choosing which is best for you is based on how you'd like to display your information.
For example, you can effectively train employees on which countries your top clients reside in with a simple pie chart—helping them understand where your products or services have the most impact.
Need more help understanding how to use data visualization? Check out this video:
Roadmaps and flowcharts are both forms of visualization that are commonly used in training and project management. This would be a helpful addition to your corporate training material, especially if you're onboarding a new employee or training current ones for succession in leadership roles.
A flowchart is a visual representation or map of a process that leads to an end goal. A roadmap, on the other hand, is a high-level overview of the company's future business plans and goals for product development and product strategy.
Flowchart objectives can include:
Here’s an example of how a flowchart can be used to train employees:
Roadmap objectives can include:
Here’s an example of how a roadmap can be used to train employees:
A roadmap and a flowchart assist in guiding employees by providing a clear directive of expectations and systems, allowing them to confidently take on their roles with ownership.
In addition, you can use Dynamic Fields in Visme to quickly update dynamic components of your roadmaps and flowcharts to keep them up-to-date.
What is interactive content? Well it's is a form of content that requires the viewer to actively engage with it. This can be in the form of a quiz, poll, report, ebook or survey.
It can be easy for trainees to skim through heavily worded documents or presentations, which can potentially lead to poor knowledge retention. By adding interactive content to your corporate training manual, you can share more information without boring or overwhelming your trainees. For example, you can use interactive decision trees to help train employees on best troubleshooting practices.
Another example of how you can use interactivity in your training with an employee handbook. You can use this template as is or make it your own:
Creating Interactive content doesn't have to be complicated. With Visme, you can easily add interactivity to get it right the first time and save time in the process. Add interactivity to any form of content that you’ll need; be it PDFs, presentations or video content, then choose from our wide range of sharing and publishing options.
Ready to learn how to add interactive content to your training material? Check out this video below:
Around 83% of respondents prefer watching videos for accessing information or instructional content versus text or audio. With YouTube tutorials being more popular than ever since the pandemic, people instinctively search for a video to guide them when most people want to learn.
So, why not provide corporate training video materials for training? These stats show that creating corporate training video material is a smart thing to do.
And there are many more stats showing video should be one of your corporate training resources.
A report by Kaltura found that 91% of educational institutions agree that video increases student satisfaction. By adding video tutorials to your corporate training material, you can provide solutions and strategies, offer real-life examples and give trainees the opportunity to learn at their own pace.
Here’s an example of how to use video tutorials to train your employees on key techniques or information:
Visme offers a wide range of video templates you can add to your training material, along with a Brand Wizard to add your branding in seconds. Our AI-powered solution instantly creates templates based on your branding. Adding your brand colors, text, and logo automatically helps you maintain branding integrity for every piece of content you or your team creates across the board.
Hear what Kendra Bradley, Graphic Content Developer at WOW! had to say about Visme.
“Visme saves time and is a whole lot more affordable than most other content development programs out there now. It makes it easy to develop professional, polished content.”
“We were looking for a new internal design program, so we got Visme and loved it. From there, we started introducing new teammates to it and it’s become a staple on our team.”
Read full details in this case study.
As a corporate training and development manager, how do you design corporate training? Whether you're overseeing a design team or doing training content creation on your own, there are a few fundamental design tips you should follow.
Made with Visme Infographic Maker
When creating corporate training courses, take the time to visualize the necessary details or information you want the trainee to remember. According to the Visual Teaching Alliance, around 40% of learners respond better to visual information than just text alone. Visuals are also easier to recall days later when compared to text.
Data visualization is a good example of how you can visualize important details so that trainees can digest heavy data or complex concepts faster and more effectively.
Even if you’re creating corporate training video material, this rule applies. With visual storytelling, you can be sure your audience will stay engage throughout the training duration.
Notice how the corporate training resource below uses visual aids like icons, images and widgets to make the information engaging and memorable.
Visual hierarchy is a method of organizing design elements in order of importance. This design tip helps you to control the delivery of information by placing design elements logically and strategically. Here are some ways you can apply a visual hierarchy to your corporate training material:
The template below checks all the boxes when it comes to maintaining visual hierarchy
A popular misconception is that the more visuals or designs you add to your content, the better it is, but that's not always the case. Using fewer designs as a trainer helps to ensure that you focus on adding what's essential and remove any fluff. Whereas for the trainee, it allows them to focus on what they need to learn and avoid unnecessary distractions.
One of the best ways to practice this tip is to take a step back and reevaluate the goal of your training content. Ask yourself, "does this design align with my training goals?" and then take it from there.
Avoid making the content too wordy or hard to read. When adding visuals or fonts, it should be readable, helping the trainee to navigate seamlessly through information without having to double back or misinterpret what's taught.
Readability applies to overlaying text on backgrounds, the color of fonts, adding too many words in one section and how the text relates to the flow of your content's design. Finding the right balance is paramount, so if you're unsure, go back to the third tip; less is more.
These tips will not only ensure that your training content is visually stunning but also functional. For more visual and graphic design tips check out this article on 15 Graphic Design Tips for Beginners & Non-Designers.
Now that you know how to make your corporate training materials pop, what should training materials include? Find out this and many more information as we dig deeper into 10 corporate training material templates you can use right away.
Start your training off on the right foot with this training manual template. This corporate training course material has five professionally designed pages ready for your content. Customize it with your company colors, fonts and logo to make it your own.
In your training manual, add your company history, objectives, instructions and an FAQ section to provide your employee with all the essential information to get started. Duplicate pages as needed and add various design elements, charts or stock images.
Need help generating content ideas or drafts for your training manual? Visme’s AI writer can help speed up content production for your training manuals. You can also use it to proofread, edit and finalize your draft.
Make a great first impression on new employees with this onboarding presentation template. This template takes a minimalist approach with the use of visual aids, icons, and sleek font combinations to clearly deliver your onboarding process. Each slide allows you to break down the first day or week’s activities, introduce team members they’ll be working closely with, role expectations and more.
Use Visme’s analytics feature to track your onboarding presentation and other projects to measure their effectiveness. See how long employees viewed the project or if they completed the entire presentation, then use the data to improve your onboarding and training content.
Training employees to properly troubleshoot issues associated with their department shouldn't be a challenge. With this swimlane diagram, you can create step-by-step guidelines on how employees can handle everyday issues without the need for supervision or micromanagement.
Customize the template to suit your training needs or choose from our wide range of flowchart diagrams. Change the text, add your brand colors and swap out icons and images by choosing from Visme’s wide library of design elements or upload your own.
Maintaining brand integrity can be a major challenge for teams in sales and marketing. With a brand guideline template, you can educate your trainees on company branding requirements or essentials so they can confidently create and share marketing or sales collateral.
This guide is pre-designed for you to add your company brand colors, values, typography, logo variations and brand placement for commonly used content, such as company letterheads, business cards and more. Plus, you can collaborate with teams in Visme to directly add comments and share vital feedback with team members to keep your brand guidelines up-to-date.
Having issues tracking your employee training sessions? This template will help you monitor them with ease. Track dates, training plans, trainers and trainees in predesignated slots. Use it on your own or share it with the trainers in charge to keep everyone informed of training plans in your company.
Customize the template’s table to add or simplify it according to your needs. Change images or colors as well as control who has access to view or edit the template to maintain autonomy and authorization.
Increase training engagement and effectiveness with stunning visuals from Visme’s AI image generator. Several styles are available for use in your project, including photos, paintings, pencil drawings, 3D graphics, icons, abstract art, and more.
Use this fun-designed mind map template to showcase what activities you have in store for your new employee. Highlight meetings, individual and team activities to keep them on track. Duplicate and edit this template based on your department or the employee’s role to keep your onboarding process personalized, structured and organized.
Case studies can be used to teach employees by highlighting issues that may need a strategic or practical approach to problem solving. This template is designed with a four-page layout to guide you on the best format for your case study’s challenge, solution and outcome.
You can use Visme’s drag-and-drop editor to add or remove slides, add animation, video content or interactive icons to make your case study more engaging.
Customer persona templates offer new employees an overview of who your target audience is and details that can help them to drive for focused initiatives. This customer persona template comes with a fun but detailed design and layout that provides space to fill in your ideal customers' goals, frustrations, motivations and overarching personality traits.
When executing an employee succession plan or making major changes in a company, having a change management template on hand helps to smoothen the transition for employees. Use this template to guide employees through changes in your organizational structure, be it leadership or new teams. With Visme's easy-to-use drag-and-drop template editor, customizing this template's design takes only a matter of minutes.
Good corporate training material is all about preparing your employee for the company workforce. By adding a 30-Day Action Plan Template to your arsenal you’ll be able to get your new trainees organized and focused on what matters, helping them to seamlessly adapt to their new role.
Use this template to help your employees set concrete goals and outline activities for completion at each stage of their training. This template can also be used to solidify on expectations and tasks associated with their role to remove surprises or miscommunication with leadership.
Visme is a beginner-friendly content authoring tool. It’s one of the best corporate training tools that offers a wide range of professionally designed templates, such as presentations, manuals, checklists and customizable design elements. You can welcome new employees, seamlessly onboard them and keep them engaged with stunning training material.
Visme's platform also allows you to export your training content in SCORM, xAPI, or HTML5. This tool supports interactive content, video, audio and more, so you can seamlessly sync with your Learning Management System (LMS).
Click here to learn more about how Visme can help you create better, faster and more amazing training content for your company.
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