The use video for internal purposes now make sense to all companies.
(Post sólo disponible en inglés)
Heads up small, and medium sized companies! There’s something to learn from the multinationals. These larger companies have always been challenged by the need to create a sense of connection among their team members spread-out all over the world. Traditionally they’ve used three approaches to solving this problem:
- Company Events
- Incentives
- Internal Video Communications
All these have helped strengthen the connections between their teams. But now, for the first time in modern history, smaller local and national companies are facing these same challenges of having isolated employees. People may be successfully working from home but managers and CEOs still need to connect, inform and build trust among their teams.
As the events and incentives options have been cut back, the third approach, internal communication videos, have become more important than ever.
Here are 3 great video ideas to set your teams into action that now have relevance for companies of all sizes.
1
The “Humor” Format:Got a complex or boring message? Let’s get creative and make it fun!
With the right script, witty dialogues, splashes of humor and some well-directed employees acting the part, you can create something that not only communicates the essential ideas in a fun way, but that everyone actually watches all the way to the end!
2
The “Recap” Format: Let’s remember what we’ve achieved!
A “recap” video is especially meaningful when a company commemorates an anniversary, particularly if the story is presented through the human and sincere testimonies of different employees looking back in time and sharing their priceless memories as witnesses of change and evolution. If scripted well, it can also be a great opportunity to reinforce the values of the company and to remind the teams that “If we’ve made it this far, there’s nowhere we can’t go!”
3
The “Newscast” Format: Keeping teams engaged and in the loop.
A creative way to deliver company updates in a light, entertaining manner is by using the “newscast» format. This is where people from your company become the show host, reporters and interviewees in order to share the improvements, metrics, or exciting goals to be achieved. One can even include motivational messages with the rest of the teams and subsidiaries. This format is highly flexible: the roles of host, etc. can change from one news episode to the next; the periodicity can be weekly, bi-weekly or even monthly; and the duration can vary anywhere from 2 min up to 20min.
This format is working really well for a number of reasons:
- It promotes unity. It keeps the closeness between employees and teams since they get to see the faces, the spontaneity and the human manner of non-professional news reporters (their colleagues) delivering messages. And believe me, this a lot of fun to watch.
- Key messages get shared in a fun and natural way.
- It engages teams, helping them clarify their ideas.
- It foments participation.
- And finally it generates expectancy, as the idea is to create newscasts with a certain periodicity.
These videos connect people. That’s [the feedback] I get back. I really like it. … And it makes me think that it shouldn’t only be news and fun but that it can also be for spreading knowledge among my staff in quite an efficient way.”
John Settels (Founder and CEO of SSVA)
Sound difficult? Check out this step by step article about how it can be done!
Closure: Two Key Take Aways.
The two key take-aways here are: 1) internal communication videos are now the key player for connecting teams at companies of all sizes. And 2) the more entertaining an internal message is delivered, the better it will hold employees’ attention, which will ultimately translate into a better informed, better trained and more highly motivated staff.