Have you tried video communications for your employee benefits?

If you are trying to get staff engaged with their pensions, you can’t ignore video.

Employee benefits communication strategy

Video increasingly dominates many people’s lives online.

It is being pushed by the main social media platforms, who now give preference to video content over text and images.

So, it makes sense to try and communicate with our own workforce using the same platforms we would naturally turn to, when trying to communicate with our external customers.

Video communications for pensions!

The stats show that video can be a key channel of an employee benefits communications strategy.

But what does video bring to the party with an issue such as pensions which – let’s be honest – sometimes sends people to sleep?

Well, there are many reasons to use a good internal video campaign for pensions comms.

1. Many people learn visually

From the day we are born, we learn and absorb information by watching. So, using the medium of video to help your employees continue to learn during their career makes sense.

Most of the human brain is devoted to processing visual information, and the brain responds to visual information faster than it does to text or any other type of learning material.

Think about what happens when you wake up after a dream. The images seared into your brain are stronger than anything you may have read or heard in the dream. It is visual effects that stimulate us the most.

So, video is a good way to send messages that you want to be absorbed and remembered.

Communicating about pensions is hard

Many employees have shown a preference for video not only in their personal lives but at work as well.

Communicating about pensions is hard enough, as it is often not at the top of your employees’ priority list. So, picking a medium they already use and are more likely to pay attention to is a no-brainer!

2. Videos humanise you (and your message)

Compared to the written word, video is a very personal medium. When you talk directly to the camera, viewers can see you, hear you and get a sense of who you are. And even if you’re not creating ‘talking head’-style videos but using creative, they will get a stronger sense of your company’s style.

It is much easier to build a relationship with people this way.

Now, you are not necessarily looking to “build relationships” with your employees over pensions, in the same way that your marketing department is looking to build relationships with its leads.

But when you’re communicating about a subject your employees might just not be interested in, you need every weapon in your arsenal.

Employees are more likely to pay attention to a message which is presented in a very personal way, rather than through words on a page. And the topic you’re speaking to them about is more likely to be perceived sympathetically, too.

3. It’s flexible and convenient for your staff

Ease-of-use is one of the most attractive aspects of video marketing.

Employees can watch videos at their desks. That means that staff who are based on-site can avoid some trips to the boardroom to sit through a pensions presentation, but still get a relatively personal experience.

And you no longer have to send representatives to other offices to tell employees why they should be saving more.

At the office, at home, even while travelling -- a half-decent internet connection is all that is needed for people to watch your videos.

4. Video does not need to be expensive

Don’t worry about having to fork out a packet on massive production costs. You could make a video with a decent camera phone, but even if you wanted to be a bit more professional, a single video camera and a small recording room can do the trick.

You might want to make things a bit snazzier that that – but the point is that it doesn’t have to be an expensive project.

Your employees are used to watching ‘live’ videos on social media, shot in an extremely informal style. They won’t object – and may even prefer it – if your pensions videos took a similarly casual approach.

If you do, you will see that video could save you both time and money.

If you are used to organising big pensions presentations or travelling to other offices to talk to staff about retirement, you’ll be able to cut travel expenses, and book rooms and arrange refreshments less often. You also won’t need to take your employees away from their work at crucial times.

5. Tracking engagement more easily

You can frog-march your employees in to a room and spend hours talking at them about pensions and the importance of retirement planning. In terms of your objectives, this will allow you to tick off a box on your to-do list.

But how many people were actually listening to what you were saying? How many understood it? And how many remembered any of it a few hours later?

With digital communications, you can more easily track engagement. You might already be able to tell who has opened the emails you have sent out, but those emails might be closed again as quickly as they were opened.

With video messaging, though, you can be much more certain how effective your communications are. The analytics mean you can track which of your employees have watched the videos, how long for, and how many times. If a lot of them watched to the end, great. If the majority turned them off after 10 seconds, it’s probably a sign that you need to refine your message.

It’s not a case of spying on them – it’s simply a way to measure the effectiveness of your message.

Of course, the best measure of engagement is seeing how your staff’s behaviour changes – are more people now taking an active interest in their pension planning? But in the meantime, these analytics can give you some idea of the interest being shown in the messaging – and alert you to anything that might need improving.

...So, what are you waiting for?

Clearly, there are huge advantages for using video messaging when it comes to communicating with your workforce – and it doesn’t need to come with a huge Hollywood budget.