Corporate video: how to manage your employees from a distance?

The past year has seen a succession of lockdowns and curfews, either you are in Toronto or in Paris. This exceptional period has led to an innovation, a transformation in our behaviour, and has seen the proliferation of teleworking in many companies and groups, whatever their size or business/brand, to avoid any spread of the epidemic in the office. But this new way of working implies a new way of managing your remote employees. And this is where corporate video (also called corporate film) can be the tool to use to make this management more effective, whether it is to 

• To define clear lines, projects and rules to be respected, 
• To discuss sensitive issues with your employees, 
• To keep in touch, to recreate the atmosphere of the coffee machine. 

We tell you more in this article (sort of a guide). And remember: you don’t need to be a digital expert or a digital marketer to make your own animated video! You can quickly gain skills in this area with an easy-to-use tool.

What exactly is remote management?

It simply consists of managing your employees elsewhere than from your usual office, due to the loss of proximity. Your office is not hosting anyone. You and your teams work from home, or from a cybercafé. In short, the office is no longer the place for daily meetings, which does not mean that you should stop communicating with each other.

With corporate video, you ensure that your team can communicate with you effectively

In addition to the usual channels, such as Slack or Trello for project cards, it is important to chat live, and ideally to see each other. Please note that some of your employees, especially interns, probably live alone in small studios. This means that a little human contact will not go amiss, so as not to feel abandoned, and to have the impression of being fully integrated into your teams. Having regular contact with them shows a willingness to follow up and support them.

Before going on to the video, the first step is to make sure that all the essential logistical functions are in place for your staff: a working computer and mobile phone, and a good internet connection. This is the basis: in principle, many HR departments send out a document dedicated to telework, which reminds you of these basic principles for working in good conditions. Do not hesitate to discuss this with your Drh for the next few months of work: be educational if you have to.

Once everything is in place, you can generalise the use of video, involving your HR department for the editing. This video content can have several functions:

• announcing a professional or more informal meeting,
• to establish the rules of teleworking: you can summarise several rules in a few lines, knowing that a video message is more memorable than a text message,
• to recruit new candidates: video remains the most consulted medium for recruitment,
• for a job interview (depending on the number of applications you receive), and for signing the employment contract,
• to present a job or an employee, in the form of an interview,
• to give some organisational advice, and thus adopt the right reflexes: you could even create a mini-series and devote one rule per episode,
• to introduce the strategy to new people,
• for the onboarding of a new recruit,
• for internal training,
• for project management,
• to relive highlights,
• not forgetting video meetings, which you can organise via Google Meet or Zoom, for weekly or even daily updates.

Using video also allows you to avoid interruptions and focus on key issues

Just because you’re physically remote doesn’t mean you should expect your employees to be available at all times, and interrupt them constantly on Slack. Thus, video allows you to : 

• Prepare some of the topics discussed during the video meeting in advance,
• to summarise some of the information to be taken into account, for example to respect the teleworking framework,
• to set communication rules: for example, the times during which each person must be reachable,
• to prepare weekly team meetings, formal or informal.

Some top examples of uses of corporate video for remote management

Here are a few situations for which video creations are becoming an inexhaustible resource. remember that, before making these videos, you can write a script, or a storyboard, a clear definition of the message of your content.

Onboarding new recruits

Arriving at a new company is not easy enough in normal circumstances: it is even more complicated when you are remote and cannot see people in person. If your team is welcoming a new person during a lockdown or teleworking period, don’t hesitate to ask them to introduce themselves on video. For example, you can use this type of assembly, made with the Pitchy solution:

Offboarding people who leave

What applies to those who join you also applies to those who leave you. It is sometimes difficult to say goodbye to colleagues with whom you have had a good time over the years, especially if you cannot organise a farewell party for health reasons. Therefore, the video can be a way, almost an archive, a memory, to say goodbye.

Someone’s birthday

And yes, because even when teleworking, we like colleagues and friends to wish us a happy birthday: we feel less lonely despite the social distance.

Raising awareness of good HR practices in the form of a tutorial

At the beginning of the teleworking period, don’t hesitate to establish a few simple rules that will be followed by everyone: behaviour in meetings, punctuality, turning off the microphone when not speaking, etc.

Congratulating someone on their good results

Whether the person is a trainee, a student on a work-study programme, on a fixed-term contract or on a permanent contract, everyone likes to be complimented on their successes of the week, month or year, especially when the compliments come from the manager or the director. This is also your role as a manager. You can share a success story video on your team Slack, which will encourage others to do as well or even better 😉

Do you want to use video to manage your employees from a distance, without being a professional? You can become a video maker by yourself. Start your production easily! Request a demo of the Pitchy solution and discover our service. It includes rushes, templates, playlist, motion and different formats.