Creating Custom Training Videos

Creating custom training videos for my staff was one of the wisest things I did during my 17 years as a cleaning company owner. It was by far the fastest and most thorough way to produce quality-conscious, high-speed employees.

Benefits

Custom videos are far superior to purchased videos because they cover the exact techniques janitors use under the exact conditions found in buildings. The techniques we used were always faster and more thorough than those in purchased videos. Many purchased videos confused our cleaners by lumping together daily, weekly and periodic work. Some purchased videos seemed more concerned with selling vendors’ products than actually doing the work. Custom videos fit our needs exactly.

By using videos, we were able to cover every conceivable scenario a cleaner might encounter. For example, in a vacuuming video we could talk about what to do if there was a fray in the vacuum cord, or if our customers were on the phone, or if there was a stain on the carpet. When I trained without the videos, I would always forget some of those details. Also, I wouldn’t always have the training materials I needed. For example, I could never find a damaged vacuum cord or a large carpet stain when I really needed one.

By showing videos, which starred myself, I felt I earned some respect within the workforce. I was viewed as completely familiar with our work and not afraid to do it myself. In this way the videos helped create a positive company culture and motivate the employees.

Over the years, as our techniques and equipment changed, I recreated each video several times. Each time I reshot the videos I watched for changes in our work quality or speed, and used this feedback when designing future videos. For example, one time I went into painstaking detail stressing impeccable quality just about every other sentence. After that video, productivity ground to a standstill. A new version of the video followed quickly thereafter and productivity returned. Besides that incident, cleaning speed and quality increased with each new round of videos.

Making the videos

When I was younger, I worked briefly at a TV station. Having that previous experience, I was able to create the videos by myself. However, most cleaning contractors will need the help of a video production service to shoot and edit the videos. Although the production company may provide suggestions to fine tune your script, you should do most of the scriptwriting yourself. Be careful to maintain tight control over the content of your videos. Be on-site when they do the editing of the video, otherwise they may skip clips containing important visual details.

Talk to several video production companies before selecting one. Make sure you agree on a total cost up front. Be aware that many video production companies want to do artistic work, and could easily quadruple your budget on fancy titles, music, lighting, artsy shots, etc. A low-cost, bare-bones video with strict attention to the content is probably more in line with what you really need.

As you create your videos think visually. Don’t just talk about cleaning, demonstrate the cleaning. Action shots should compose more than 90 percent of your video. The best video would train even if the volume was muted. Many people learn better visually rather than orally. Others may have problems with English, Spanish, or whatever other language you use. Occasionally, there will be background noise and the video won’t be heard. Think visually.

During the actual filming, I was the actor with a cameraperson filming the action. A third person read the script as I cleaned, which allowed me to time my cleaning to fit together with the words. The action was generally broken into short, detailed segments shot from different camera angles. On average, there were about four shots or camera angles per minute. Later, during editing, all background sounds were erased and I reread the total script over the video.

Whenever you show what not to do, label the video clearly with the giant word “NO” or with the international no sign (a circle with a bar through it.) Otherwise an employee may see what not to do and think it is what they are supposed to do. I figured this out only after having a seemingly bright employee doing some pretty bizarre work.

Make the videos as complete as possible. Before you start shooting your videos, think of every scenario a person might encounter. Talk with your trainer, operations manager, and/or a few cleaners to make sure you don’t forget anything.

I was always careful to separate daily work from weekly or periodic work. If I mixed them together, cleaners would perform time-consuming periodic tasks on a daily basis, which wasted time and money.

My later videos were generally broken into five sections. The first section gave a quick overview of the process. The second section went into great detail. The third section dealt with what not to do. The fourth section showed a complete cleaning sequence at normal speed in one continuous shot with no editing. Without the “normal speed” section, cleaners dwelled on the details and they viewed cleaning as a slow, tedious process. By seeing the whole process at normal speed, they were able to clean at a much quicker pace. A fifth section dealt with ways to move even faster.

Using the videos

I interspersed the videos with hands-on work. For example, to train a restroom cleaner we watched the overview and details sections of a video. I then asked if there were any questions, and the trainee cleaned a few restrooms. I then inspected his work and asked for more questions. The trainee next watched the “what not to do” section and cleaned a more restrooms. After a question-and-answer session, the trainee watched the “normal speed” section and continued cleaning.

I saved the fifth section of the video for about one week after he was hired. This section dealt with the common mistakes that people made which wasted time. In some cases I also replayed the whole video.

Creating the custom training videos was indeed a time-consuming process, but it was well worth it. Cleaners were exposed to many details on the fastest, most efficient techniques which fit the exact conditions we encountered in our buildings. This resulted in a workforce able to deliver high quality work quickly and profitably.

Tim Parker recently sold his cleaning business and retired. He is still active in the cleaning industry through consulting and creating training videos.