Keeping Employees Engaged Via Video As They Begin to Return to the Office

Shortly after COVID-19 hit, so did the influx of using video everyday – heck all day for both work and for socializing. When your teams head back to the office is your network ready to handle this traffic? Did you learn during this time, did you understand key components about your live events, including, video reach, video quality and level of employee engagement to name just a few things. Many countries are beginning to think about life after COVID-19. In fact, we’re starting to see some nations lift social distancing orders already. Germany, Italy, Czech Republic, and Austria are just a few examples of countries that reopened schools, shops, and more in early May. And depending on the numbers we see soon, the United States will likely continue its reopening efforts too.

This means it’s time to think about how to continue to engage your employees as they go back to work in the office. If you’ve been communicating with employees via video as they work from home, you don’t have to give that up now that they’re heading back to the office. Also, consider the fact that some employees may be returning to the office but others may need to continue working from home for the foreseeable future. Employee messaging needs to be consistent, regardless of their working location. Here’s why you should keep using video for internal communications, and how you can successfully keep employees engaged through video in the near future.

Why Use Video to Communicate with Employees?

Communicating by video is the easiest way to engage hundreds or even thousands of employees at once. In fact, studies show that people are 95% more likely to remember a message when they view a video compared to reading an email or text. Maybe that’s why 93% of internal communicators recommend video as a way to talk to employees.

After all, using video for internal communications is:

• More efficient than in-person meetings
• Quicker and more engaging than emails
• Cost-effective for employers
• A simple way to provide a human touch to communications

And if you already know the many virtues of video, you’ve probably been using it more than ever in the last couple of months to touch base with employees while they work from home. Whether you’ve streamed videos to the whole team for company wide announcements or used video for staff onboarding and training, this mode of communication has likely been very helpful in recent times. So why stop using it now? Why not plan to use it more as your team gets back into the office?

How to Prepare to Use Video More This Summer

Depending on the industry, most companies in the US have at least a few weeks until they can start to re-open, and potentially longer until we get back to business as usual. This provides an opportunity to plan ahead to make internal communications via video better than ever. As you start working on ways to incorporate video into your communications plan, now is a good time to consider some best practices.

For instance, think about what kind of videos you want to make for your employees. Are you only going to use videos to announce important news, or are you going to use them to better connect with your team? If it’s the latter, consider the following fun video ideas:

• Ask-me-anything videos, in which you answer questions that employees commonly ask
• Behind-the-scenes tours of different office locations
• Monthly employee awards
• Weekly employee spotlights that showcase the strengths of different team members
• Day-in-the-life segments of employees in different departments

These are just a few ways to keep employees engaged through video when they get back in the office. You can likely use these ideas as inspiration to think of more videos your team would appreciate, especially at a time when boosting morale is critical.

The Importance of Quality Videos & Analytics

No matter which messages you choose to convey through video, make sure you end up with a quality product. You want employees to get excited to watch company videos, not end up confused because the video is blurry or keeps freezing. If you’re not confident about making videos for corporate communications, you might want to hire professionals to help with production.

Similarly, if you’re not sure if the network in the office can easily handle your whole team watching videos at one time, you need better network optimization before you send out any communications. And now is a good time to set it up. Fortunately, you have access to simple solutions like Hive Streaming, which offers improved enterprise video streaming delivery for offices that can’t smoothly stream video. A network optimization solution like Hive’s should be able to be configured so your employees in network constrained locations receive the same quality and level of engagement as those working from home with ample network capacity.

When you get help from Hive Streaming, you can benefit from software-based video distribution using the bandwidth already provided to your office. Rather than all viewers needing to have their own stream, Hive uses advanced technology to let viewers use the same network segment to watch high-quality video while at work. And thanks to Hive Insights, you can get reports that tell you how well each video has done so you know if you need to improve your corporate communications tactics.

Hive Insights will help you understand the level of employee engagement, including did they watch from an office or at home, how long they watched for, what the video quality was like, did the video buffer, etc.

If you want to know more about how Hive Streaming’s video delivery solution works, or if you’re ready to try it out, call or send us a message online today!

The original version of this article was first published on Future of Work.