4 successful video strategies for HR professionals

HR professionals are both responsible for engaging job applicants and current employees, but it all comes down to one real challenge — how to get people interested?

This is especially true during the challenging time of COVID-19, as most companies are forced to implement a work-from-home policy, furlough, and other difficult adjustments. Whether your business is fortunate enough to continue recruiting more talent or you are just trying to help existing employees stay safe, calm, and engaged, HR professionals are all facing challenges.

Many are addressing this challenge with the help of videos. After all, people are already watching 84 minutes of video per day, even before mandatory lockdown, and visual communication can be 25% more effective than oral.

So why not use HR videos to stay in touch with your employees? Or use it during a training session to keep an employee from dozing off?  You can either create your videos from scratch or use one of our recruiting and HR templates.

Here are a few ways that you can use videos to engage and educate job seekers and employees, both new and old.

1. Showcase company culture 

Attracting top talent is a major challenge for any company. When the salary expectations have been met, job applicants want to know what other benefits your company can offer. An invigorating work atmosphere that inspires growth might be just what your candidate is looking for. 

Create a video that highlights the company’s goals, the daily culture, and even give a pre-COVID glimpse of your office. For example, in the following video, the employees of MadgeTech talk about why they love coming to work every day. They feel like they’re making a difference, and they like getting together over a pizza – who doesn’t?

What we can learn from it:

1. Elicit an emotion – With the help of upbeat music and calm voices, the video creates a feel-at-ease vibe.
2. Introduce approachable management –  It shows that the CEO values the people most of all. 
3. Talk about employee experience  – The employees say that they see the results of their work.

If a candidate wants a job where they will feel valued, impactful, and at home, they will most probably apply for an open position at MadgeTech. 

2. Illustrate the job descriptions

Most job descriptions you find on third-party job boards are just walls of text. Adding a video will help you stand out.

Here are different elements you can include the 

1. List the key responsibilities. This one will repeat the text part, but you can go the extra mile and talk about what awaits the new hire in 6 months and one year. Videos about career opportunities are great digital assets to share on social media.
2. Reasons to apply. Highlight the benefits of this role — flexible schedule, ability to work from home, paid lunches, etc. Go a step further and invite employees to talk about the perks they enjoy.
3. Hear from teammates. You can include positive testimonials from employees who are already working in the position.

Here’s an example:

What we can learn from it:

This is just a nice and effective way to grab the candidates’ attention as they scroll through endless text job descriptions.

3. Visualize the onboarding process

New hires are usually swamped with information. From company culture to new faces to organizational procedures, they have lots to learn. 

The approach of throwing piles of company manuals at new employees, sending them a PowerPoint presentation, and expecting that they will find time to consume all that information between product training sessions, is overwhelming and often has a negative impact. 

How can you change that? Well, we know that 65% of the population are visual learners, so why not try creating a video instead? 

Here are some tips on creating an engaging onboarding video:

1. For your content not to seem dry, inject some personality, and try using humor. If possible, engage an employee or two in the video. This way, the video will be more relatable.
2. Don’t record an hour-long video. It can be daunting to watch. Instead, break it into digestible chunks of 5-10 minutes. 
3. Start with “who we are and what our values are”. Don’t dive into the details just yet. Proceed by talking about their new team and job responsibilities.
4. Inspire the new hire! Make sure the person knows they can make a difference by doing their job.

Here is an example of an onboarding video from Unite Therapeutics.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=54&v=LTveeuXeRKk&feature=emb_title

What we can learn from it:

This is information that would, up until recently, be included in a hefty black and white manual, but they found a way to make it more digestible by animating it in a short video.

4) Engage current employees

This is another pain point for HR specialists. A report from Gallup shows that as much as 85% of hires are not engaged at work. This is directly linked with poor internal communication — with both management and HR.

How do you use video to help increase the engagement of your current employees? There are more ways than one!

Humanizing corporate strategy

Most employees view company strategy as a theory distant from reality. Videos featuring other employees and their success stories in connection with the strategy can make it seem less formal and more relatable. Your employees will then come to work with a feeling that each day they are contributing to the common cause.

Re-board current hires

Employees might feel left out and, therefore, less engaged, if the management doesn’t update them on the new company goals, annual results, or product enhancements. And, often, if the managers do send out reports, they are dozens of pages long. Who wants to read those?

Instead, you can create a screen-capture video to walk your colleagues through the main points, and even record a selfie video to share enthusiasm about the future plans.

Engage during meetings

How often do you see your employees drift off during a company meeting? Let’s face it, all meetings have their weak moments at one point or another, so it might get boring.

Videos can help liven things up. If it’s the start of the meeting, kick it off with an inspiring video with the exciting work results like the growth of NPS score for your company, or some employee’s success story.  In the middle of a meeting, a video with energetic music can switch things up between talks, and wake up the audience. 

Creating employee highlights

When employees feel appreciated, they show more motivation and loyalty. 40% of Americans admit they work harder when the management values their work. Periodical videos highlighting hires who went the extra mile, achieved outstanding results, is a great way to achieve cross-company awareness and engagement.

Get started right away

Video is a powerful tool in your HR toolbox, from showcasing company culture to facilitating onboarding to updating the employees on the company news.  These were just a few suggestions, but video use cases inside a thriving company are endless.

The best part is that it is now easier than ever to create videos without the help of editors or designers. Anybody can create HR videos in minutes with the help of DIY videos like platforms – all it takes is a good idea and a couple of minutes.

Check out our stunning HR video templates today!