Even before pandemic-era levels of work-from-home, employers already had their sights set on the role of internal communications in employee productivity, engagement, and retention. With emphasis on engaging employees in the company’s mission and an increased focus on culture-building, corporate leadership and their human resources teams have been challenged to reach everyone effectively.
With more people than ever working remotely, and the expectation that remote work will be a stronghold long after quarantine ends, now is the time for corporate teams to embrace and refine ways to communicate effectively with their long-distance employees.
While video conferencing has been standard practice in everyone’s day-to-day work habits, more sophisticated internal communications videos will play an important role in communicating to your staff in the future.
Leadership Communication
In Techsmith’s 2018 “The Value of Visuals Report”, research showed 36% of employees said their motivation levels have been affected by poor company-wide communications.
Many larger organizations have long had satellite offices and field employees that don’t frequent traditional offices, leaving little chance that they will ever personally get to know the corporate leadership team. How can leadership reach these employees?
Emails and company intranets are good vehicles for internal communication, but the content has to be engaging and purposeful for employees to spend time on it. Video is a great solution.
More in-depth videos can be used to introduce and create buzz around important initiatives like sustainability, philanthropy, or exciting changes and updates. We recommend a regular cadence of simple videos from key executives to humanize the company and give team members visibility to those that set your culture.
Training
Video should also be an essential part of your onboarding and training programs. Techsmith reported that 67% of employees perform better when communicated with visually compared to text alone. Specifically, using video rather than text increased accuracy by 6%.
Even when employees return to in-person work, video training is an ideal way to ensure that they receive consistent instruction. Not only will video help them catch on more quickly, but they will also be able to refer back to videos at a later time for a refresher – something live training doesn’t allow for.
Additionally, have you ever been part of a series of internal product trainings for your staff? If so, you know new product rollouts and service demonstrations vary from session to session. Video is a great way to offer more consistent guidance for your team, a benefit that will rollover to your customers and to your bottom line.
Employee engagement
Every great corporate communicator knows that employee engagement starts with an investment in clearly communicating your company’s vision and values. This is partly because of the rise of interest among employees in working for purpose-driven organizations.
Video is key in your internal communication plan for telling your brand story and highlighting the meaningful work that drives your employees to come to work for you every day. Whether highlighting the impact your employees have made, celebrating milestone achievements, or continuing to retell the story that built your brand for new employees, there is no doubt video is a valuable communication tool.
Our Spiracle Anthem premiered at our annual team event to celebrate our story with our team members.
Don’t forget, times of uncertainty aren’t the time for your corporate team to go dark. Clear and consistent messaging from the leadership team at your organization is more important than ever.
