With 63% of all employees having hybrid or fully remote arrangements according to a 2023 McKinsey study, companies are more conscious than ever about fostering a strong company culture amongst their people. While some companies have started forcing employees back into the office, citing culture concerns as the primary reason, others are implementing initiatives that boost a strong culture while still keeping the benefits that hybrid and remote work bring. A 2024 Gartner study concluded that 48% of employees believe that rigid return to office (RTO) mandates prioritize what managers want over employee wellbeing. The same study also shows a 16% lower intent to stay amongst top performers at companies with strict RTO policies due to a lack of trust. Art Mazor, Deloitte's Global Human Capital Practice Leader, stated in a Forbes interview that "people in high trust companies are 50% less likely to leave, 180% more likely to be motivated, and 140% more likely to take on extra responsibilities".

Popular initiatives to boost culture that many hybrid or remote companies are implementing include monthly drinks (whether on the screens or in-person), quarterly team activities, or company-wide seasonal parties that get all employees into town to bond and have a great time. While these initiatives are undoubtedly fantastic and have a high impact, they all require a lot of organizing, limiting their frequency. To pad the time between these events a company should implement methods that foster culture on a daily basis. In this article, we demonstrate how leaders can utilize video for internal communication to increase trust and boost corporate culture.

Video is widely associated with marketing and completely overlooked as an effective format for fostering company culture through internal comms, especially when face-time is limited. With internal comms more important than ever in order to maintain a connection with remote and hybrid workers, there’s a clear mismatch with the default format of choice being impersonal emails. With the amount of communicating HR teams and c-suites do over email, it’s easy for remote workers to get overloaded with written information, increasing the risk of them missing information or simply tuning out altogether. In this article, we’re going to discuss several ways in which video can be used to strengthen company culture.

Edit your all-hands or town hall recordings

Most companies hold weekly all-hands or town hall meetings. These meetings are often recorded so they can be watched by remote workers in different locations and time zones. Most people are not going to watch an hour long all-hands after the fact, so why not edit it down to 5 to 10 minutes of highlights? Similarly to a marketing video, all the less relevant parts should be cut out so that only the meaningful parts remain and video duration is limited, leading to more views and a higher retention rate.

Replace C-suite and HR emails with videos when suitable

Email communication is faceless and tends to get lost in piled up inboxes. HR should instead record announcements on a company phone and turn them into short videos. Similarly, an update from the c-suite would often work much better as a video than as an email. A leader showing their face on video to talk directly to employees when delivering an important message is far more impactful than an impersonal written message. Remote employees who don’t get a lot of in-person face-time are more likely to feel a strong connection with a company if they are engaged in a personal manner.

Onboard new joiners with a video series instead of emails

When a new employee joins a company they are often bombarded with onboarding emails. It’s not uncommon for people to miss important things about the job or company due to information overload. By having the HR team introduce all aspects of the company via succinct videos, information is much more likely to stick. Corporate leaders can also more effectively convey company culture and values through onboarding videos with a human connection, helping the new joiner to fit right in.

How to create videos for internal communication

Given that a lot of meetings and presentations are already recorded, why is it that so many companies under leverage video for internal comms? The main reason is because video editing software is complex to set up and use. HR teams are not familiar with video editing and so internal recordings don’t get edited into effective videos. elevate.io is designed to make video editing intuitive for anyone, no matter their skill level. The editor runs smoothly in the cloud on any device that has a Google Chrome browser, so you don’t need to go through any complicated setup.