4 Winning Video Strategies HR Professionals Should Be Using Today

Amidst the changing complexion of workplace management, antiquated HR techniques will no longer cut it.

Futureforth.com founder Dave Delaney interviewed HR leaders and managers and the following emerged as the top challenges HR departments are facing today:

1. Communication and culture
2. Time management
3. Leadership investment
4. Effective recruitment in a competitive labor market
5. Global reach and changing compliance requirements

To address these concerns, HR professionals need to explore other tools and include these in their HR management arsenal.

Cue videos.

In 2022, videos will account for 82% of all Internet traffic, while Forrester Research reveals that one-minute videos contain the same amount of information as a 1,800-word document. Video is processed by the brain more effectively.

How can HR professionals get the same benefits videos have given the fields of sales, marketing, and education?

In filming and video production, the following 4 terminologies are commonly used: fast forward, zoom in, fast motion, and close up. Let’s see how they relate to creating winning video strategies HR professionals should implement today.

1. Fast Forward to a More Competitive Recruitment on Social Channels

In 2019, HR professionals are reeling from the long-existing talent shortage. As Jobvite vice president of marketing Matt Singer explains: “While for years we’ve been hearing about a tough talent market, this year, we’ve reached a tipping point. With more open jobs than people to fill them and the market at near full employment, recruiters are finding new ways to reach candidates where they are – whether that’s on Instagram or via text. They’re re-evaluating what success looks like, with quality hires and retention rates becoming a higher priority than time- and cost-per-hire.”

As a result, HR professionals are turning to social media to find – and attract – potential candidates.

Well, guess what? When it comes to social media content, video is king. On Facebook alone, more than 500 million users watch videos every day.

Here are 3 ways video can make your organization more competitive in using social channels for recruitment:

• Show potential hires your culture. Instead of telling them how fun your office environment is, why not film your current employees having fun while working? Instead of telling them that you value diversity, why not show them the different walks of life you’re proud to call your colleagues?

• Employee testimonials. Word of mouth is a powerful force in marketing. In this competitive talent market, a significant percentage of talent acquisition is marketing. Creating testimonial videos featuring your current employees and posting them on social media is an effective way to attract top talents.

• Explainer videos. A bulleted list of the benefits and perks that your company offers is not enough to capture the attention of potential candidates. An explainer video (either live or animated) is more disruptive and breaks through the noise of a cluttered social media feed.

Every HR professional who is currently using or planning to use social media channels for recruitment should have a video content strategy in place.

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2. Zoom In on Hiring Remote Employees

Speaking of the widespread talent shortage, businesses should start looking into remote workers to fill the workforce gap. Hiring remote workers both onshore and offshore – originally a hiring strategy employed by cash-strapped small businesses, solo-preneurs, and startups – should now be a staple in the hiring strategy of bigger SMBs and large enterprises.

Video as a content medium and video communication technologies are making it easier for companies to hire remote workers miles or even continents away. They bridge the physical gap between remote workers and their co-located colleagues and make collaboration easier despite the distance, and the difference in time zones.

Here are some specific ways that can help you zoom in on your strategy for hiring remote workers:

• Using video conferencing for interviews
• Screen recorder apps help with troubleshooting and explaining complex topics
• Create video watercoolers to foster engagement and connectedness

All in all, videos make it easier for organizations to take advantage of a bigger talent pool by enabling remote work.

3. Put New Employee Onboarding and Training in Fast Motion

Employee onboarding is a crucial HR function because it not only involves collecting the required documents from each new hire. It also builds the foundation to allow new employees to absorb your organization’s culture.

In offices around the world, employees are still burdened with going through pages after pages of thick employee manuals and orientation materials, which are not only boring but also ineffective considering that 65% of the population are visual learners.

Thick employee onboarding documents have no place in modern workplaces that are embracing digital transformation. Videos offer a more effective alternative because:

• Videos are more entertaining and engaging.
• Videos simplify complex explanations of company policies, SOPs, workflows, and processes. For instance, instead of providing a step-by-step written manual on how to use your office time clock software, using a screen recording app provides a clearer step-by-step reference for new employees.
• Instead of going through thick manuals, onboarding can be done using bite-size video snippets as to not overwhelm new hires with too much information.
• Important information on company protocols (i.e. health and safety, privacy, cybersecurity) is better absorbed and increases compliance.

When it comes to providing training, your organization will not always have the resources nor the time to organize live training events. As an alternative, you can create a library of videos that your employees can use for self-guided training. This is especially useful for evergreen skills (topics that will always be relevant to your business) because it allows you to re-use the same training materials (given that they’re still up to date) instead of organizing live training events.

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4. Give Your Company Culture a Close Up

Imagine starting every workweek watching a video featuring your organization’s leaders with words of encouragement from the team. Imagine, while waiting for their interview, applicants see looped videos showing how happy your current employees are. 

With the Silicon Valley giants flaunting how fun their workspaces are and how vibrant their work dynamics are, company culture is taking back the spotlight it deserves. As the primary advocates of employee engagement, HR professionals are (co)-responsible to make sure that an organization’s culture is embraced, appreciated, and practiced by each employee.

Among members of a more digital-native workforce (think for instance Millennials, Gen Z and what comes after Generation Z), using videos as opposed to other forms of content is more effective, engaging, and a better fit for digitally transformed workplaces.

Time to Hit Play on Your HR Video Strategies

Videos are a part of people’s everyday lives — whether it’s entertainment, communication and education or skills development. This recent proliferation of video content has somehow shifted employees’ expectations on how prospective and current employers should interact with them. HR professionals should pay attention and start including video strategies to elevate the different HR functions anchored in today’s video-rich content and technology trends.