Four Benefits of Closed Captioning Company Training Videos

Adding closed captioning to company training videos is crucial for ADA compliance. Additionally, closed captions are a simple way to help all of your employees better understand and remember important company- and job-related information.

To illustrate the importance of closed captioning company training videos, we will run through four significant benefits of using closed captions.

1. Avoiding a Costly ADA Lawsuit

Closed captions are one of your two options for meeting ADA video requirements, the other being an American Sign language (ASL) Interpreter.

Title I of the ADA prohibits discrimination in all employment practices, including job application procedures, hiring, firing, advancement, compensation, training, and other terms, conditions, and privileges of employment.

This means if you have a deaf or hard of hearing employee, you will need to accommodate their disability by captioning your company training videos or hiring an ASL interpreter.

2. Employees Will Focus Better

Captions are able to keep people’s attention on videos for longer, effectively keeping them focused on a video’s message for longer.

A PLYmedia study found that captions generated a 40% increase in video viewing. Internal research at Facebook found that view times for video advertisements increased by an average of 12% when captioned.

For the many companies that have hours of training videos, giving employees the ability to read along with the video not only keeps them engaged with the content but also visually reinforces the video’s message.

A professor at San Francisco State University conducted a study on the impact of captioned videos and found that his students’ performances on tests improved dramatically when captions were turned on. The professor, Robert Keith Collins, noted that video captions helped his students focus and take better notes, resulting in 1 point higher GPAs.

Furthermore, if an employee has a learning disability like dyslexia or ADD, closed captions are instrumental in maintaining focus on the video.

As you can see, by adding closed captions to company training videos, employees are better able to focus and understand the important information that is required for every employee to know.

3. Closed Captioning Removes Language Barriers

There are millions of Americans who speak English as their second language. For non-native English speakers, research shows that captions are great aid that clarifies video dialogue and speaker accents, ensuring clear communication in your training videos.

If your employees aren’t fluent in English, captions can easily be translated into subtitles for a variety of languages. For international businesses that want to ensure consistent communication, using captions and subtitles is imperative.

4. Employees Retain Information Better

If ensuring your employees can understand your training videos is priority 1, then making sure they remember the information that was presented is priority 2.

The U.S. Department of Labor conducted a study in 1996 that found people learn best with a combination of both visual aids and oral explanation.

In the study, subjects were tested on recall for information delivered orally, visual, or both orally and visually after a three-day time period. Oral-only instruction had an information retention rate of 10% and visual-only instruction had a retention rate of 35%. The combination of both visual and oral instruction resulted in a 65% retention rate.

With all the work that goes into company training videos, it’s in the company’s best interest to have the information watched, understood, and remembered.

Closed Captioning Company Training Videos Yet?

Many companies are aware of the accessibility requirements for training videos, but there are still many companies not captioning their videos.

If you don’t want your company to end up in an EEOC lawsuit like FedEx and The Cheesecake Factory, make sure your are closed captioning company training videos.

If you do not yet have closed captioned company training videos, check out our post on How to Choose a Video Captioning Service.