Kollective: Uniting employees on business strategy through video

Communication is the key to thriving in the digital economy. It’s vital to an organization’s internal culture (supporting collaboration, transparency, feedback and strategy) and is an essential element driving customer engagement and business growth.

But for comms leaders, when it comes to uniting employees on business strategy, it can be challenging to ensure that everyone understands the organization’s vision, mission and culture.

One of the biggest challenges for internal comms is dealing with the multitude of channels through which employees communicate, including email, a pletheroa of collaboration tools, social media and updates via company newsletters. While it’s important that employees are able to communicate with each other in whatever way is most convenient, it means that information can become segmented.

Shift towards decentralization

Over the last decade, there has been a shift towards decentralization of the workplace to better reflect the globalised way in which people work. As a result, organisations have undergone a cultural change — with many companies now offering flexible and remote working — and this, in turn, has changed the way that they now communicate with their employees.

Given that many employees favor flexibility, and organizational structures have altered to accommodate this preference, it’s more important, but also more difficult than ever before, for internal comms leaders to ensure that employees are united in their understanding of business strategy.

This is a particular issue for global organizations, many of which have multiple offices and teams dispersed across different continents and multiple time zones.

Uniting overseas teams and remote workers on strategy

One of the most powerful solutions that an organization can employ to solve this issue is video. While video in itself is not new, it now has many different uses that can bring together remote workers and teams. The technology has also now advanced to the point where cost-effective solutions are available that can be rolled-out across an organization’s network, at scale, without cannibalizing its entire bandwidth.

Tools such as town hall updates (which provide employees direct access to the CEO insights) livestreams, messaging webinars and video newsletters all have a major role to play in updating company communication and aligning teams on aspects of the business that the company considers mission-critical.

Video is a powerful medium for engaging and creating real time connections. Employees are used to using video in their daily communications outside of work, and they want those same experiences whether they’re office-based, working from home or on-placement in an international office.

SEE ALSO: 

• Harley Ellis Devereaux merges with Integrated Design Group

• Barac: Encrypted data and the hidden threat within

• LogMeIn: Giving CISOs the tools to measure and improve password security

• Click here to read the March edition of Business Chief US

Using video to encourage collaboration and engagement

Through the use of video, comms leaders can build and maintain internal relationships, increase engagement and productivity, and ensure that employees in different offices and in different departments are all aligned when it comes to strategy.  

With so many exchanges taking place via email and over the phone, we can often overlook, or undervalue, the importance of speaking face-to-face.

What is most notable when sitting and speaking with someone, is just how many communication cues are lost, or simply unavailable, when doing business only by email or phone. Body language, gestures and facial expressions are just some of the important indicators that let us know how a conversation is progressing, or where it may be stalling.

But video technology brings all of those visual cues back into play. It allows for conversations to flow more naturally, and is especially important in cross-cultural communication, where there’s greater potential for strategic goals to get “lost in translation”.

Unlike traditional communication updates, with video technology, comms teams can monitor metrics such as who has engaged with a message and who’s watched through to the end. This means content can be tailored based on these insights, so that it’s packaged and delivered in such a way as to have maximum impact.

Solving strategic communication challenges through video

So, for communications leaders to solve the strategic challenges that they face, and unite different employees, departments and teams on strategy, organizations must implement smarter solutions when it comes to the delivery of internal messaging.

Today, employees expect to be able to communicate at work as they do socially. That means having access to multiple communication channels across multiple devices, so that they keep in touch with teams whether out of the office, working remotely or from overseas.

However, keeping team members connected and strategically aligned in these circumstances can be challenging.

Videoconferencing allows organizations to sidestep these issues. Not only does it help foster a stronger collaborative spirit amongst employees, but it eliminates the slow, wait-and-reply nature of emails, lessening the likelihood of misunderstandings and of important information being misread, misunderstood or mislaid.

For comms leaders, video is vital to creating a rich culture of internal communication and helps them solve issues regarding wider understanding of business strategy among remote employees, overseas teams and different departments. Through video, strategic ideas and concepts can be communicated quickly and efficiently, and any pending decisions can be settled with minimum hassle.

As a method of internal communication, video technology is the best way for an organization to articulate strategy and align overseas teams and remote employees.