Fostering Employee Buy-In

How Video Builds a Stronger Culture in Industrial Companies

Record-high job openings among manufacturers are just one sign of the labor shortage we’re all discussing. The Congressional Budget Office suggests it isn’t just a COVID hangover, either. With Baby Boomers retiring, the much smaller Gen Z workforce won’t make up the difference any time soon. 

This isn’t news to you. It’s a daily reality. And, you need every advantage you can get in how you onboard, train and retain your skilled workers. It’s more than just payscale that keeps an employee engaged and happy in the 21st-century workplace. Now, more than ever, it’s the culture. 

As famous management consultant Peter Drucker said, “Culture eats strategy for breakfast.” More than just a nice buzzword, culture is the foundation of your company’s success. It is the central issue you must address because it profoundly shapes everything else in your organization – safety, productivity, collaboration, customer service. And, it absolutely impacts your ability to onboard, train, and retain skilled workers. 

For you to beat today’s competitive market conditions, you must empower your people to develop their skills, make meaningful contributions to the company, and believe the shared values you hold. You must help them understand and believe your company’s mission, vision, and values. 

In the fast-paced, serious world of industrial manufacturing and services, it might be tempting to ignore all of this feel-good hokum as a waste of time. But, helping each employee find their place and understand their contribution is more than just PR. You’re literally selling them each day on the value of your company. If you want to hire and keep the best of the best, you have to convince them there’s nowhere else they’d rather be.

One of the most powerful culture-building tools available to industrial business leaders is professional video production. 

Videos empower you to cultivate a cohesive and thriving company culture unlike any other medium of communication. Let's explore six compelling reasons why video is the solution to cultural success:

1. Video is Immersive:

From a new employee on their first day to veterans celebrating milestone anniversaries, video changes how your team receives information. This is because video production creates an immersive learning experience that engages employees on multiple levels. Through compelling visuals, demonstrations, and simulations, videos captivate your audience, helping them understand complex concepts and absorb information more effectively. Not only does video enhance knowledge retention, it ensures that your employees will actually internalize the cultural values and practices you teach.

2. Video Ensures Consistent Messaging:

Consistency is vital to building a strong culture. Likewise, inconsistency eats away at the foundations of trust and belonging among employees. How often do team members complain about “mixed messaging?” Leveraging videos in training and education enables consistency across geographies, departments, and teams. By producing high-quality videos with standardized content, you’ll ensure a uniform training experience for every employee. They’ll all see the same information, regardless of training facilitator, ensuring alignment throughout your organization.

3. Videos are Interactive:

Video doesn’t have to be a passive communication tool – it can actually draw employees into interactions better than a presentation. When you pair video with proven training tools like quizzes, simulations, or scenario-based discussions, you’ll be able to use the video as a launching point for deeper engagement. This interactive approach fosters a sense of ownership between employees and the content being discussed, reinforcing their desire to belong to the in-group of company culture and embrace the values, processes, and ideas presented to them.

4. Video Enables Self-Paced Remote Learning:

In the post-COVID workplace, flexibility is expected, especially in tasks that aren’t central to job performance like training and education. Video equips you to offer employees access to information and opportunities regardless of their location. It eliminates travel from outlying locations to your headquarters. And, it equips your team to learn when it best suits their schedule.

5. Video is Accessible for Every Employee:

Issues like language proficiency or differences in learning styles can be limiting for diverse teams. Video is a great equalizer, ensuring that every team member has access to your company culture regardless of their limitations or preferences. Subtitles, voiceovers, and translations help you break language barriers and foster inclusivity quickly and efficiently. When you use video in these ways to promote cultural values, you are proving your commitment to a strong, united culture.

6. Video is Inherently Scalable:

Efficiency is the lifeblood of industrial organizations – everything has a process. Often, it’s vital that these processes are easily repeatable and adaptable. Video is by nature a scalable and iterative tool. You can create video libraries that expand and update as company culture evolves. New developments in best practices, standards, or process insights can easily be incorporated into videos, ensuring that your messaging is always on target and relevant. You can also quickly repurpose high-quality video across different training topics to maximize impact and coverage, ensuring cost-effective production through simple planning and forethought.

Employee Buy-In is Too Important to Leave to Chance.

Video is a powerful tool to build and maintain a cohesive, thriving culture at every level of your organization. From standardizing consistent messaging to creating inclusive experiences, video fosters a shared cultural identity. Embrace the potential of video production and watch how it strengthens your company culture, ultimately improving employee engagement, enhancing safety practices, streamlining onboarding, and sustaining your organization across whatever challenges come your way.

Ask Foundry how we can help strategize your cultural video revolution today!