✦ Summary
Do not turn the handbook into one long video. Map week one, make a short video per section, keep one voice and one style, and send the links before day one.
How to make an onboarding video people actually finish
Here is how to make an onboarding video from your employee handbook: do not make one. Make five to eight short ones, one per thing a new hire needs in their first week, each two to three minutes long, all in the same voice and style. Then send the links before day one so people can watch them in order.
This post is for the HR or L&D person who owns onboarding and has a 60-page handbook nobody reads. You will end up with a week-one video set, a way to decide which sections deserve a video, and a delivery plan that does not need an LMS for most of it.
Why one long video fails
A handbook is a reference: people search it when they need an answer. A single 25-minute "handbook video" turns that into something to sit through, and nobody remembers the leave policy from minute 19. Short videos match how new hires actually meet the content: IT setup on day one, time off when they first need it, the code of conduct before they sign it.
Short videos are also cheaper to keep right. When the expenses process changes, you redo one two-minute video, not the whole set. The microlearning video maker page makes the same case for any long course.
Step 1: Map week one
List what a new hire does in their first five days, and match each to a handbook section. Only sections that someone needs that week get a video. The rest stays in the handbook, linked.
| When | What the new hire does | Handbook section | Video | Mode | Delivery |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Before day 1 | Knows what to expect | Welcome, how we work | Welcome to the team | Prompt | Share link in the offer pack |
| Day 1 | Sets up laptop and accounts | IT and security | Your first hour with IT | Document | Share link |
| Day 2 | Books time off, claims expenses | Leave, expenses | Time off and expenses in 3 minutes | Document | Share link |
| Day 3 | Signs the code of conduct | Code of conduct | Our code of conduct | Document, Source of truth | LMS, tracked |
| Day 3 | Handles customer data | Data protection | Handling customer data | Document, Source of truth | LMS, tracked |
| Day 5 | Knows who to ask | Org chart, contacts | Who to ask for what | Prompt | Share link |
Six videos, about 15 minutes in total, spread over a week. Anything with a legal or audit weight goes to the LMS so completion is recorded. Everything else is a link.
Step 2: Write an angle for each video
An angle is one sentence: who the video is for, and what they do after watching it. It is the difference between a video that summarises a section and one that gets someone to act.
- Weak. "An overview of our leave policy."
- Strong. "For new hires in their first month: how to book a day off in the HR system, and who approves it."
Write all six angles on one page before you make anything. If two videos have the same "what they do after", merge them. The free video brief generator turns six quick answers into a one-page brief per video, which is useful when a section owner needs to agree the angle first.
Step 3: Choose one voice and one style for the whole set
A set that changes narrator and look between videos feels stitched together. Pick once and write the choices down.
In the composer, the voice button opens the voice list. Press the play button next to a voice to hear it, then pick one. The button beside it sets the narration language. Narration comes in 28 languages, so a team split across countries can get the same video in theirs.
A welcome from your CEO in their own voice is the obvious wish here. Recording your own voice is coming soon; for now, pick the stock voice closest to your company's tone and use it everywhere.
For the style, Ligne Claire (clean black contours with flat colour) was made for workplace scenarios and onboarding. Paper Collage suits the welcome and announcement-style videos. If you have brand guidelines, a custom style built from your logo, colours and fonts in the Library shows up under My Styles in the style list. See every style in motion before you pick.
Step 4: Prompt mode for the welcome, Document mode for policies
The two kinds of video start differently.
The welcome and "who to ask" videos start from a prompt. There is no document to be faithful to, and you want warmth more than precision. Click Create, keep Prompt, and describe the video. The Training video button above the composer fills in a starting prompt you can rewrite.
A welcome prompt that works:
A two minute welcome for new hires at Acme Learning, a 300-person training company. Cover: what we make and for whom, our three working habits (write things down, ask early, finish what you start), what the first week looks like, and that their manager will call on day one. Warm, plain, no jargon.
Policy videos start from the document. Switch to Document and upload with the File chip. Upload the section, not the whole handbook: save the leave and expenses chapters as their own PDF or DOCX, then pick Source of truth ("The script closely follows your document.").
There is a shortcut for small "how do I" videos. Upload the whole handbook, pick Reference & context ("Your prompt drives the video; the document adds facts."), and write a narrow prompt, such as "How to book a day off, for new hires, in 90 seconds". The prompt picks the topic and the handbook supplies the facts. Do not use this for the code of conduct or anything someone signs.
Whichever mode, keep Review script on. You will see the scene plan before anything is drawn.
Step 5: Have each section owner read the plan
The plan screen, Shape the story before we build it, shows every scene with the exact narration. That is what the section owner should read, not the finished video. IT checks the IT video, payroll checks expenses. A wrong detail fixed here costs a line of typing.
Look for dates, amounts and system names that have changed since the handbook was written. Handbooks go stale faster than anyone admits. When the plan is right, press Approve and continue.
Step 6: Deliver: links on day one, LMS for the tracked ones
Share links for most of the set. In the editor, the Share button at the top right opens Share video. Switch on Anyone with the link and press Copy link. Turn on Password protect if the content is internal, and Allow download if people should be able to keep a copy. Put the links, in order, in the welcome email, the onboarding checklist or a pinned post in your Teams or Slack channel.
SCORM for the policies you must track. Click Export, pick SCORM 1.2 under Format, and set Complete at to Fully watched. Upload the package to your LMS and assign it to new starters.
Common mistakes
- Baking in numbers that change every year. Say "your allowance is in the HR system" rather than the figure, unless you will update the video when it changes.
- Mixing styles across the set. It reads as six vendors, not one company.
- Sending everything on day one. Send the welcome before the start date, and the rest as each moment comes up.
- Skipping the section owner. The person who wrote the policy will spot the error you cannot.
For the use case as a whole, see the employee onboarding video maker. For the policy videos in the set, how to make a compliance training video covers checking obligations word for word, and how to convert a Word document to video covers cleaning a handbook chapter before upload.
Start with the welcome video
Write the six angles, then make the welcome first. It needs no document and sets the voice and style for everything after it. Join Interlace and have your first week's set ready for the next start date.