Maximizing Remote Employee Engagement

Speaker A: Just mainly this lovely title slide that I was going to speak to. So please don't judge my cluttered desktop. Um, otherwise, so let's get right into how are we seeing companies adapting with video today? Um, and some of the easiest ways to get started with using video to engage your team and kind of keep that culture that I just talked about alive and working through is taking your medical mission-critical announcements to the entire company. A lot of companies like at Vidyard, we used to do this through standup at town hall. We had the whole company live. You can take that through now, moving that in a remote environment to recorded video updates that you can share through internal channels. So some of our customers, the way that we're doing it here as well, is we'll have our CEOs or our leadership record these just like how I'm talking to you right now, send that through on our Slack or on our email so that everyone, even though we can't be together, we can all still have in very real time access to our leadership team and the messaging that they're trying to get across. Next up is live brainstorming, real-time discussion. Like I just said, that's— and for me personally, that's a big thing that I really miss about being in the office is getting into the same room with each other and being on there real time discussing and collaborating. So a great solution to that is like everyone is so used to right now is Zoom meetings or that synchronous video meeting where you can archive it, you can record it, you can share it afterward. Similar concept to how we're going to do with this webinar right now, even though we had technical difficulties getting started, we'll be able to record this. Share it with everyone so they can watch it on their time and when that works for them. Um, so you can use this in terms of just replacing those meetings, those collaborative team meetings, getting everyone in on a Zoom call, um, and, um, getting that collaboration going between you. Next up is project planning, status updates, check-in meetings, these kinds of things. And this is what I'm most passionate about is asynchronous video, um, which is, um, if you're not familiar with the term, basically just a 1-to-1 recording where you don't have to be there live. So if I want to work with Khadijah, say, which we did do, hard to believe, but running through the tech setup of this webinar beforehand, you know, if Khadijah and I don't both have time immediately beforehand to be live on the webinar together, I can make a quick screen record of myself walking through it for her. Here's how this works. Send that over to her so that she can watch, watch that whenever that works for her. She doesn't have to hop on live with me and get our schedules coordinated. She can really have that connection with me, enjoy that semi-face-to-face experience and seeing my face in real time and knowing who I am and getting a sense for who I am and what I really need to communicate, but without having to be live on a Zoom call in that sense. Large company gatherings, kickoffs, events. I think these are the things that are most difficult for a lot of companies to be able to continue having be an exciting and engaging thing when remote. So for this, we see a lot of people using internal live webinars and live streaming. So even though we're not all together, we're all in the virtual space together, connecting and using that live chat feature with your employees so that people can still feel like they're part of it. Recently, a great example at Vidyard, we had our company kickoff, which normally is a very exciting 3-day event that we do live. And we did, of course, have to move it to virtual. And I wasn't sure how it was going to go, but we were able to— just by being able to get everyone hyped up on it beforehand that it was still gonna be fun and still gonna have a lot of different virtual events in it, we were able to get a lot of great engagement from everyone in the chat. So while it was a livestream, people were presenting and people throughout the team were engaging in the chat. And a great way to get that going within your organization, even if you maybe don't have that engagement from your team off the bat, is have some internal champions that you wanna reach out to in terms of making sure that they're kind of committed to being involved in the chat and getting things going. When you do have these big events. So reach out to people who you know are outgoing, who are in different departments throughout your organization, so that way when you do have these live events via livestream, which can sometimes be difficult for people, you have those people kind of getting the conversation started, getting the party going in that chat, and getting people going in that way. And then also onboarding orientation. These are probably your most traditional uses for video in terms of keeping people engaged. Having that prerecorded content to go through some, some of the content that may not be as engaging otherwise. Like, I know everyone— for me, if I have to learn how to do something, my first resource is to watch a YouTube video on it, even though I got the full manual myself. So we use this a lot in onboarding and training and things like that, just to make that kind of dry content a little bit more interesting and a little bit more engaging for people. While they are remote and while they're doing it on their own. So there are a lot of objections, even though I talked through these, and I'm sure by listening to me, these all sound like great ideas for ways to keep your team connected remotely. But there are a lot of objections that you may get from your internal team in regards to using video for this. You know, video takes too much time being a top one. Um, video takes too many resources. People don't like being on camera, all of these kinds of things. that you will likely encounter from your team if you do start to move towards using video to keep your team connected and engaged more while you're remote. So I just thought I would talk a little bit more about how you can actually kind of address those concerns and then keep moving forward with your, with your program. So like I said, asynchronous video is a great way to use video to engage with your team while avoiding that Zoom fatigue, which I'm sure now as we enter June, kind of the third month of— third or fourth month of major impacts of remote work a lot of people are feeling where you do kind of feel like you're on Zoom calls all day long and it's hard to get other work done. So recommendations for asynchronous video here are for corporate communications. Like I said, having your leadership team record executive updates to the whole team so that everyone can get a little bit of time back in their day, but also still be able to be connected, see that leadership as a person. And not get— I sometimes feel we have a lot of people tell us that when you haven't seen people in a while and you aren't having that connection, it's easy to kind of lose your connection to who those people really are and your emotional connection to your teammates. So having your leadership record those videos, keep that face-to-face connection with your employees and make sure everyone still feels like they're part of, you know, your team's family is a really great way to use that. A feature that we have is that we can then measure engagement with the content as well. So if it's a very important update from our CEO, He can then look back and see, you know, what percentage of the team did actually engage with that content. Did they watch the whole thing? Did they only watch a portion of it? And then he's able to understand, you know, hey, we have, we have a big problem. You know, people aren't watching the videos, they don't feel connected. And then you can kind of use that to get that real-time information in terms of how is your team responding to your messages to update and reevaluate how are you communicating. You know, if you're seeing super low engagement on really important corporate communications from leadership, That's a really good warning sign that, you know, people are getting disengaged and do need to be reached out to. So maybe you want to start coordinating like some online virtual hangouts or some kind of fun game sessions just to get people back and reconnected and re-engaging with everyone else on your team. Another great one is for actual direct internal communication. So between your team members, really empowering your team members to use all the different tech that they need to, to feel connected and engaged with one another. And video being a great way to, um, just interact. Like on our team, we recommend all the time. We actually have a challenge going on right now, um, called One Less Meeting, where we challenge everyone to replace one meeting in their day that would be taking place over Zoom with an asynchronous video. So a quick recording of, um, you know, me showing people, for example, on design, I use this a lot. If I'm working with the design team, it can be a lot of back and forth if you're not in person in terms of how do you want something to look or feel, or how do you want this visual to change? And a great way to do that with video asynchronously is to just record your screen, talk through it, and send it to them so they can get both your, you know, your audio description of what you want along with that visual component. So that way you can really be collaborating together, but you're doing it in a way that allows you both to be respectful of each other's calendars and schedules. And you're not just beholden to Zoom calls all day long and have your day completely filled with that for every little project. So when you are looking to get started with using video more to engage your team and communicate more effectively with your team, a huge thing to do is first off consider your company culture, know your audience, and then plan accordingly here. Um, so like at Vidyard, we're a very video-enabled company, so we didn't have to do a lot of enablement when people went remote in terms of getting on Zoom or using Vidyard to record these videos and getting this virtual culture going, but a lot of companies this is completely net new to. And I think that's such an important thing to do if you are planning on launching or trying to improve your employee engagement with video and different types of tech to communicate, whether it be video or anything, is you really want to consider how does your company culture respond to these kinds of changes and what can you do to present it in a way that will be best received and, and obviously best engaged with. So you want to have— one key step is to have a plan for continuous content. If you do whatever it ends up being, whether it be video or another solution that you want to use to reach out to your employees while they're remote, you want to have a plan for some continuous content. It's very hard for people to adapt to something if it's a one-off and then there's 3 weeks in between. So before you launch, have a few different pieces. Maybe have an executive update. Maybe have a fun social video that you're prepped to invite people to. Have a few pieces of content set to go before you launch. That way people can kind of become used to it. They can understand what to expect and they have that kind of continuous flow of communication back and forth. And that will really start to help them build that connection and build that re-engagement. Um, this is the same kind of thing as I talked about in terms of like having a company event that you want to run through Zoom would be to consider internal champions that you may want to reach out to to support the launch of any kind of engagement initiative. So that can be— and I would recommend that being people across different teams. So connect with people that you know, you know, are personable and more outgoing and across a variety of different teams and expertise so that you can kind of get them to sort of be your champions within the company when they're talking to people as well, to kind of encourage people to get more involved in the outreach resources that you're providing. Get them bought in, and that way that'll help where it's not just you and your team. Hammering at them with the importance of the messaging and the content that you're sharing, but you do have other internal champions within the team that are also supporting that. It's a great, great asset. And even just a few people filling that role can really go a long way in terms of getting everyone on board and getting everyone excited about the way that you're trying to engage and communicate with them. And then also something to consider is that new routines do take time to become ingrained. So don't be discouraged if, you know, the first 2 times you try and reach out to your team to get them engaged or the first initiative or so, doesn't spread like wildfire throughout your organization. It's a very tumultuous time right now, and any, any big change takes a while to get used to. So that kind of goes back to what I talked about a little bit ago in terms of having a few pieces of content ready to roll out to your team in that, you know, don't get discouraged right off the bat if you get low attendance to something or low engagement with something. Try and analyze that engagement. What can you do to change moving forward? And then keep pushing forward that content and just know it will take a while for your team to get on board and engaged. But baby steps are a great way to sort of approach, approach any kind of new communication initiative for your team. So in terms of getting started, there's lots of different types of content that you can start off with. Like I said, anything that you have to communicate your team with that's sort of boring, even in live in-person meetings, is a great way to try— is a great type of thing to try and switch to video and try and make that a little bit more fun and engaging for people. It's hard to be engaged while remote, and it's even harder to read through like a 5-page PDF document on like your stock options while you're remote as well. So using video to have someone from your team walk people through it and highlight the importance and the value of it is a great way to kind of get people more engaged with that. And then hopefully as that develops and grows, people then start to respond in the same way, and you can kind of see that shift within your team begin to grow. Video culture. So moving to a more engaged culture throughout your organization and using video as a way to be engaged and reach out to your employees is a cultural shift within every organization, whether or not you're used to communicating remotely or you're used to using video or you're used to giving feedback remotely, whatever it may be, is a cultural shift. So like I talked about a little bit ago, is having, having your leadership bought into it as well and kind of personalizing their outreach this way will be a great way to get people more bought in and stay engaged. And a great tip too, if like say your leadership is nervous to be on camera or wants to spend a lot of time doing a highly produced, highly produced video of their update or their message or whatever it may be, it really doesn't need to be. Take it from someone who has watched many, many videos from leadership. The videos that our leadership team sends out and that our customers send out that get the highest engagement are typically, you know, on a selfie, selfie-style videos on your webcam, like how I'm talking to you right now, or even on a smartphone and recorded and sent out. Informal videos are human and it humanizes the face of your leadership and your organization, especially when you know that you are reaching your team in their home. It's nice to be able to kind of humanize that and keep things not too formal and not to worry too much about production value and all that kind of things in the way that you're communicating, just to be real and be authentic. You'll typically see higher engagement from your team. When you do communicate in that manner. And next up is video for all. And this is what I'm talking about in terms of throughout your organization moving to, um, trying to drive the entire company to communicate more personally and more directly. Um, so this can be just employee communications, like I said, design reviews, um, overall status updates. And the point of this is just to A, increase the productivity of your communication, like Slack, email, any kind of instant messaging tool that you're using. It can be overwhelming and people can tend to mute it. Like right now I've got all my communication channels muted for a little while just to be able to focus. So sending a quick video, um, for literally any project, just encourage your team. If, if they would, if you would lean over and say it to your coworker in the office, making a quick video and sending that over is a great way to just replace that. And then it gives that face-to-face, interaction. You can be yourself, you can show your personality. Um, it's surprising how much that will do for your, for your, uh, for your emotional connection to your team and how engaged you are and how, how you feel about the project that you're working on. So 3 key takeaways that I have for you today in regards to using video to really reach your team and get engaged and keep people productive and involved in all of those great buzzwords that we're all after here is First off, like I said, to plan continuous content, don't launch with just 1 or 2 pieces. Really try and have at least a few pieces ready to go so that you can, as an ambassador and as a leader of this program within your organization, you can lead by example. So you're sending out multiple pieces and you have a lot going on. Especially if you first launch, you know, trying to use video communication within your organization, and if you put a lot of effort into that initial launch, You've got everyone's excitement and interest as it's new. So make sure that you have other content set up to share so that you can build on that excitement and that initial engagement to carry on throughout, throughout however long the remote work situation lasts. Next up is to think like a marketer. So any internal communications program, it's going to fight for attention just like any external marketing program. So we all get marketed to all the time. Um, and we know how easy it is to delete an email or to ignore a message. Um, and so your internal comms program to try and get people more engaged and more excited about whatever it is that you're trying to connect on is going to face the same problem. So think like a marketer. How can you, um, make your content really, really interesting and engaging to people? Um, how can you make it funny? You know, caption, uh, caption it with a funny subject line, things like that, just to make sure it stands out. And that really does tie into number 1 as well, where once you have that initial excitement off the launch, make sure that you're building on that like any good marketer would and continuing that flow of information to everybody. And number 3, define the metrics that matter to you. So in terms of any sort of effective internal comms with remote employees, you want to define what metrics are going to matter to you in terms of is this successful? And you can use those to guide you as you move through. So if your initial goal is I want everyone to I want, you know, a 20% increase in employment— employee engagement in regards to executive updates. Then you can set that metric and then continue to watch as you send videos. If you deliver it via Slack, if you do a contest or a giveaway or something like that to drive engagement, you see those types of things increase. Just want to make sure that you're paying attention to the metrics that you get and the types of engagement that you get so that you can continue to adapt as you go forward. So if a highly produced executive video does not get you the engagement that you want, keep that metric in mind and then try and shift the way that you're delivering the content, the way that you're producing this to different ways. So try a selfie-style video, try individual team meetings switching to video, and make sure that you keep that kind of like that North Star metric in mind as you continue to communicate with everyone and see how that increases and different types of content may drive that engagement up.

Speaker B: Oh, okay.

Speaker A: So now that we've covered, um, kind of different ways that you can communicate with your team and different ways that video can help you to engage and keep that excitement going for your team remotely, Khadijah's going to talk a little bit more about the other side of things and how you can gather feedback from your employees directly and get that real hard data in terms of what they need to know and what their thoughts are on things. So I'll pass this over to Khadijah now.

Speaker B: All right, thanks, Jesse. That was awesome. So yeah, I'm just kind of here to dive more into how you can gather feedback from employees that are now kind of in a remote situation, remote workforce situation. And as Jesse mentioned, a lot of this is net new for different organizations. So there are different ways that you have to go about adapting to this and, you know, not being too overwhelming for your staff, especially when they have so many other things that they're trying to orchestrate. Even though we are a few months in, there are still things that are changing all the time. So basically the point of this is to kind of understand the mindset of your team members and what they'll be looking for upon their return to the office. Hit it. Okay, cool. So this is kind of a general overview of how companies are adapting with internal communications. So at ContactMonkey specifically, we do give you the ability to use video, but we're more focused on doing internal emails and employee newsletters. So these are just some of the things that we've seen with our customer base and just internal communicators in general, and how they are kind of going about communicating with their staff, especially now that people are not face-to-face in the office or working as often together. So of course, internal email updates. Of course, you can include video within that, but that might be the easiest way to reach your employees since it is still the most used channel. Of course, we do have several different ways of doing more real-time communications, you know, like instant messaging. Sometimes companies using intranets, you may have a forum, but email is still kind of the top choice for employees. So it might be the easiest way for employers or internal communications teams to really get in touch with staff. Of course, company newsletters. So just on the screen here, you can see a bit of an example of what a newsletter could look like, what it could include. I've bolded employee surveys because I do want to dive into that a little bit faster as kind of the key way of getting feedback from your employees. Anonymous comments as well. So maybe you asked for comments or you had a comment box in the physical office space, but now it's a good way, or a good time rather, to think about different ways to gather those anonymous comments, either doing that through a software like ours or using another way to kind of get that employee voice. But I feel like people are more open to providing feedback once they know that those comments or that feedback won't be held against them. So making sure that you stress that it's going to be anonymous and that you're upfront with what you'll be using the comments for if you choose to collect them. And then of course multimedia, so our favorite, video. I've noticed that a lot of companies as well are putting out podcasts that are being released internally, and they've kind of been talking about that a bit on social, as well as infographics, just to kind of have a one-stop for all of the information that they're trying to provide or update their employees on. Okay. So, where employee surveys fit in, in my view. So basically, they give employees a voice on topics within the organization. It could be something as simple as, did you enjoy our town hall, to, you know, do we need more healthy snacks in the kitchen? Of course, we can go deeper into more complex issues as well. We found that they're a more quick and informal way to gather real-time feedback. Especially when your employees are kind of adjusting to a new lifestyle of working, it's great to not put more additional work on their plate by giving them something that allows them to make an impact through providing their feedback, but also not asking too much of them in terms of how they can provide that feedback. So making it quick, making it easy, making it clear is very important. Providing data on what's resonating and what changes may be needed. So for, you know, team leaders, employers, but also having information that you can provide back to your teams. is incredibly important, especially when today's employees are really looking for that transparency and that direct communication. So once you have something that you're able to look at in real time and actually just show them a physical representation of, you know, the feedback that you've gotten from them as a whole team, that's something that can work to your advantage as well. And then it's just, again, providing a bank of information for you to share. So just diving deeper into a couple of the survey options that we offer within our tool, but just in general that are becoming more popular in the internal comms space. So employee pulse surveys in general. So if you're not familiar with them or you're thinking about trying them out, they range from 1 to 10 questions and they take a maximum of 5 minutes to complete. And then they touch on a specific topic. So again, something like, you know, healthy snacks in the office could be what you focus on for that survey. You can do them as frequently or as infrequently as you'd like. We found that the kind of sweet spot is doing biweekly or monthly pulse surveys. It's not too much for your employees, but again, depending on what sort of topics you're trying to address, you can adjust your cadence accordingly. Some areas of interest that you might want to look at as well— oh, are— thanks— organizational changes. So if there's been any changes other than remote work that you feel you want employee feedback on, maybe there's been a new hire, changes in leadership, things like that. company news overall, and also how effective— maybe you have training sessions, maybe you're offering, you know, some sort of ways for your team to engage, or you're doing workshops virtually— you can find out how effective and how receptive people are to things like that. And some 3 key uses for your employee pulse surveys. So one, building a culture around growth and communication. Of course, we pride ourselves on that at our company. It's what we're helping other organizations to do, and Especially now that we can't have those desk, you know, in passing conversations or anything, it's really important to kind of keep up that culture as we move towards a different way of working remotely. And then providing relevant discussion topics for meetings. So if you're finding that you put out a survey, rather, and a lot of the answers are similar, you can definitely bring that in as something to discuss with the larger team and kind of figure out how to move forward with that feedback. And then of course, measuring the success of large-scale changes, Even if you're doing like maybe more in-depth surveys, you can use this as kind of an aside piece, or you can use it to really see how, you know, if you change something large, maybe you've got a new office space or something before we all ended up at home, and now you're asking folks to think about, you know, what they want that to look like upon return to the office. You can use a survey to kind of measure what people are saying about that and, you know, bring those large discussions or have a more targeted discussion around topics like that. Okay, and then for those who don't know, we also offer ENPS surveys. So this actually derived from the general Net Promoter Score survey, which was used for customers, and then it kind of was used in a way or kind of methodology for viewing your employees as customers and being equally as invested in them, if not more invested in them, as stakeholders within your organization. So basically, it's a 10-scale system used by teams and leaders that is put in place to bring issues to the surface and create a system for prioritization. So normally, it's a quarterly survey, at least in my experience, that people send out, and that's kind of the typical window that people use. And it's around recommending your organization or product, and it usually just has one question, simply, you know, would you recommend, you know, ContactMonkey or Vidyard as a place for people to work? Or you could even just bring it specifically if you have a product that's released. Do you think that the product is effective and would you recommend people to use it? Or do you think it's effective or it's like serving its purpose or whatever the case may be? So basically, you can use this as a way to shift to understanding how remote work is being handled by your employees. If they think that your organization is handling it well or vice versa, if you could be doing something better to make it a more pleasant experience. Especially when it's so uncertain as to how that will change. It might be a good time to kind of use ENPS in that way. And 3 ways that it supports leaders specifically is for coaching. So not only coaching teams, but also coaching themselves on how they can improve their organizations, taking action on organizational issues. So again, looking at that feedback and acting on it as it comes through, and then also being a support system for employees, knowing that you're asking these questions regularly. and that they can actually see the action that you're putting behind what they, what sort of feedback you've received as a leadership team, as an internal communications team, as a manager, etc. So something to consider in terms of internal comms and your company culture, especially now that things have moved more online, is to look at your past actions. So are your employees used to hearing from you? If you're not the type or the type of company that's doing internal communications, be sure to move into this gradually. If it's something you're thinking of experimenting with, don't just throw out a bunch of emails and kind of see what sticks. Really be strategic about how often and/or if this is something that fits with your company culture and layout at present. Issues raised. So are people usually open to giving feedback? Do you feel like you've, as an employer in particular, have you kind of cultivated an atmosphere that's open for communication, open for feedback? And if not, how can you go about doing that and ensuring that your employees feel comfortable, you know, sharing their opinions on things that matter to them in their workspace? Looking at overall employee sentiment, do you find that your employees are generally happy? If this isn't something that you feel, this could— using surveys could be a great way to kind of dig into that deeper, but just think about in general over the the course of your organization, if that's something that needs to be addressed and something that you think might be a problem is employee happiness, employee sentiment. And lastly, for senior leadership, we kind of ran a survey, kind of the global state of internal communications, and we found that even though every organization seems to know that internal communications is very important to your company thriving, to culture, employee engagement, there's been kind of a lack of support for internal communications because it seems a little bit more experimental, and that's kind of led to a lack of investment from leadership. So when you look at your senior leadership team, either if you're a part of it or if you're an internal communicator working on behalf of senior leadership, do you find that the C-suite really places values on strong internal communication? And if not, how do you go about proving that before you go into putting together a full plan to really engage with your employees during this time. Okay, so 3 key takeaways from my section here are to firstly shift your messaging. So be specific if you're going to be sending out surveys in particular, be specific in what you want to ask, and be timely in what you want to deliver. So if you're sending out just like an internal email or newsletter, make sure it's timely in the sense that it's actually on pace with whatever is going on within the company. Like if something major happens, or even something minor that you still want employees to know about, don't wait on delivering that. Of course, be, you know, strategic and really think through your messaging, but you don't want people to find out through the grapevine and then kind of take that information the wrong way once you do deliver it, or wonder why you didn't tell them sooner when it's something that, you know, seems to be important that everyone knows within the organization. Secondly, don't overwhelm your employees. As we've all— we both mentioned here, really, we're all kind of learning to kind of navigate this new way of working. For some, it's semi-normal, or, you know, there are companies out there that are fully remote. But if you find that it's especially new for your organization, don't overwhelm your employees with sending them too many communications, especially if you're trying to implement a new system of communicating internally. Just focus on important internal issues that might come up, or If it's something related to COVID-19 or Black Lives Matter movement or anything that's topical within the news and your company is making a response to that, just maybe kind of outline for your employees how you're going about addressing those issues both internally or externally. But don't feel you need to send them an update to every stage, but kind of give them more of an overall picture so that way if there are questions that follow, you can address them accordingly. And the last thing is definitely set real goals. So I think these all tie in together, but definitely make sure you're not just sending an email or a newsletter for the sake of doing so. Have a purpose and a plan for your internal communications. And then rather than just following trends you've noticed. So if you're seeing that, you know, one of your competitors is sending out emails like daily or something, like I was on a conference about a month ago and they were talking about how they've been doing kind of daily check-ins and daily emails, which if your culture is responsive to that and they were doing that, you know, pre-COVID, then it's not Too much of a shift, but just make sure you're not doing it because, you know, you heard another company was doing it. Make sure it fits in with, you know, what your employees can handle and what your company culture reflects and looks like. Awesome. Any questions?