How to Create Training Materials for Employees (2026 Guide)
A step-by-step guide to creating training materials employees actually use, from clear objectives to choosing formats and turning key lessons into video.
I have built a lot of training material over the years, and I have watched most of it get ignored. That gap is the real thing to fix. A deck gets thrown together the week before someone starts, it lands in a shared drive, and nobody opens it again. The material exists. It just does not do much.
Useful training material is not about volume. It is about getting one person to do one thing correctly, sooner than they would have figured out alone. Gallup reports that only 12% of employees strongly agree their organization does a great job onboarding new people (Gallup), and that shortfall turns into slow ramp time and early departures. LinkedIn’s 2025 Workplace Learning Report puts learning opportunities at the top of what keeps people from leaving. So this is worth doing with some care.
Here is the process I actually follow, in the order I follow it.
Start with the job, not the content
Before I write a single slide, I get clear on what someone should be able to do after the training that they cannot do now. Not what they should know. What they should be able to do.
The fastest way to find that out:
- Sit with the people already doing the job and ask where new hires get stuck.
- Look at where mistakes cluster. Repeated errors are a map of missing training.
- Read the questions that keep landing in chat or the help desk.
This is the step most people skip, and it is why so much training answers questions nobody asked. Ten minutes here saves you from building the wrong thing well.
Write objectives you can check
An objective is a promise about what the learner will be able to do, written so you can tell whether it happened. “Understand the refund policy” is not checkable. “Process a refund in the admin panel without asking for help” is.
I keep objectives close to the SMART shape (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, time-bound), but I do not get precious about the acronym. The test I care about: could I watch someone and know, yes or no, whether they can do this? If the answer is fuzzy, the objective is not done.
Clear objectives also tell you what to leave out, which matters more than it sounds. Every extra section you add is something a busy person has to wade through to reach the part that helps them.
Match the format to the job
Not everything deserves a video, and not everything survives as a PDF. The format follows the objective.
- Reference material people return to (policies, how-to steps) works best as short, searchable docs and checklists.
- Anything visual or on-screen is better shown than written, which is where video comes in.
- Skills that need repetition, like handling an objection or running a tool, need a place to practice rather than just watch.
Most large organizations now lean on self-paced digital and blended formats, with classroom training a smaller slice of the mix.
Leading delivery methods reported by large companies; the remaining share is spread across virtual classrooms and other formats.
Source: Training magazine, Training Industry Report (via eLearning Industry)
You do not need every format. You need the right one per objective, and the discipline to stop there. If you are building structured lessons, my walkthrough on how to create training modules goes deeper on sequencing, and corporate training videos covers where video fits inside a larger program.
Turn the parts worth watching into video
When a task is physical or happens on a screen, showing beats describing. That is the moment video earns its place instead of padding a course. People reach for it too. In TechSmith’s research, 83% of people prefer watching a video to learn how to do something over reading about it.
Keep each video to one idea. Wistia’s State of Video research consistently shows attention falling as videos get longer, so five focused two-minute clips beat one twenty-minute recording almost every time. Add captions, since plenty of people watch on mute or do not have English as a first language.
If you have never built one, this short walkthrough covers the whole thing in five steps, from planning through recording to a clean edit:
The production bar is lower than people fear. A clear screen recording with clean audio does more than a glossy video with a muddled point. When you do want help scripting or editing, how to make training videos for employees and how to make instructional videos both break down the workflow. The one place I would spend on real production is customer-facing material, where the video is also a first impression of the brand; that is most of what my team at Moonb works on.
Make it easy to come back to
Most learning does not happen during the training. It happens three weeks later, when someone hits a wall and needs the answer in under a minute. Materials that assume a single sitting fail that moment.
The formats that hold up:
- Quick-reference checklists for anything with steps and an order.
- Searchable how-to docs, so the answer is findable without watching a whole module.
- Short clips for the two or three tasks people forget most.
- Simulations or role-play for high-stakes situations where a real mistake is expensive.
- A handbook for policy and context people consult rather than memorize.
Think of these as the layer under live training. The session gets someone started. The reference material keeps them unstuck.
Ship it, then fix it
Your first version is wrong somewhere. You will not know where until real people use it, so I ship earlier than feels comfortable and watch what happens. The signals I look for are simple: where people rewatch or reread, and where the same question keeps landing in chat even after they finished. Both point at a spot in the material that is unclear or out of order. Completion rates tell you whether people got to the end. Performance on the actual job tells you whether it worked, and that is the number that matters. Update on that evidence, not on a hunch. Good training material is a living thing you prune and sharpen, not a document you finish once.
A short checklist for materials that hold up
When I review a piece of training before it goes out, I check for:
- A clear objective stated up top, so the learner knows what they will be able to do.
- A short outline of what is covered, so nothing feels like a surprise.
- Real examples instead of abstractions.
- Step-by-step instructions for anything complex, in plain language.
- A place to practice, not only to read or watch.
- A quick check for understanding at the end.
- An easy way for learners to tell you what did not land.
If a piece is missing three of these, it is not ready. If it is missing the first one, start over.
Most of this you can do with tools you already own and people who already know the work. The material that gets used is rarely the most polished. It is the piece that was built around what someone actually needs to do, then kept short and fixed after real people met it. If you are also thinking about the first week specifically, how to improve the customer onboarding process applies the same logic to a different audience.
Frequently asked questions
Start with a clear objective at the top so the learner knows what they will be able to do by the end. Add a short outline of what is covered, real examples instead of abstractions, step-by-step instructions for anything complex, a way to practice rather than only read, a quick check for understanding, and an easy path for learners to tell you what did not land. If a piece is missing most of these, it is not ready to ship.
Short, with one idea per video. Attention falls off as videos get longer, so a few focused clips of around two minutes each will beat one long recording for a topic with several parts. Break big subjects into a series, keep each segment to a single task, and add captions so people can follow along on mute or in a second language.
There is no single best format; the format follows the objective. Reference material people return to works best as short, searchable docs and checklists. Anything visual or on-screen is better shown as a video than written out. Skills that need repetition need a place to practice, such as a simulation or role-play. Most large organizations now use a mix, leaning on self-paced digital and blended formats with less classroom time.
