Cinamaker CEO, Benjamin Nowak, takes a look at how video production software can be used by HR teams to create original video content for recruitment, training, retention, and more, all in a way that’s affordable and easy to navigate
Video that looks good, has a potent brand identity, and comes together quickly is easier than ever. Recent advances in mobile technology make it possible to produce high-definition, multi-camera videos without having a pricey professional studio or mobile team. Real-time video editing and inexpensive high-quality cameras mean HR teams don’t have to launch a moonshot to have a bonafide multi-camera video suite and use it regularly.
All you need is a tablet, a few iPhones and/or digital video cameras, and some inexpensive (or even free) software and perhaps a few specialized cables. Using devices you may already have on hand, you can shoot videos from multiple angles, edit in real time, and capture events, conversations, and relevant moments to do some great company storytelling. And if your company already has a video team, the mobility and ease of new video production apps and approaches can transform the way they create content, speeding up the process by orders of magnitude.
This ease and speed let HR professionals think in new ways about how video might serve them in recruitment and onboarding. In a world of increasingly informal business culture, where younger employees often turn to video to express themselves and to learn more about the world, good-quality multi-camera videos can lend compelling authenticity and even–dare I say?–fun, to what are sometimes less than fun processes.
RECRUITMENT
Culture videos. Sometimes they need to be perfectly storyboarded and polished. Sometimes a looser, more spontaneous vibe better captures the culture of your company. Even if you already have a professionally produced video you love, you can add to your video assets easily, capturing your company’s new office space, your improved employee health initiative, or a cool event for charity that shows your values. Moreover, if appropriate, you can stream these videos directly to your social media channels, either live or later after a re-edit.
Interviews with employees and executives. The talking heads and potted plants of yore feel stifling and laughable to younger potential candidates. Live-production style video can make a conversation with the CTO or an employee who tells the company’s story from her unique perspective seem more authentic and less static, by shifting camera angles, adding media elements, and enabling easy voiceovers.
Custom video for a particular position. Wouldn’t it be cool if you could tailor video content to a particular pool of applicants, or relate it directly to the skills and expectations you have for a particular position at your company? Now it’s easy. You can show candidates exactly where they’ll work. You can interview their direct supervisors and let them talk about the job.
You can even insert an email field at the beginning of a video that allows viewers to unlock it, grabbing their address, if you’re looking to identify an initial pool of interested candidates. Or you create a video and customize it via personalization apps so that viewers see their names on that welcome sign or on that quirky poster by the standing desk in your video.
ONBOARDING
At Cinamaker, we eat our own dogfood. We decided to make tutorials using our multi-camera video platform and the setup we recommend to everyone from newsrooms to YouTube personalities. We needed to show a wide range of activities, processes, and graphics. We needed screenshots and voiceovers. We did it all live using 4 iPhones cameras controlled and live-edited with an iPad, dropping in only a minor clip here or there to improve our explanations.
Things went as expected: We ended up with two hours of training videos, over 30 short-form videos in all, done and ready to unleash. The bulk of our production work–more than 90%–we were able to complete in a single day, followed by some minor tinkering in our titling and graphics. That’s it.
With this approach, we anticipate over a dozen hours were saved in post-production editing. Should we need to make more tweaks, we have all the metadata and cameras in-sync, so we can always go back and change things as needed, or even export them to professional video editing suites like Final Cut or Premiere if we wanted to get fancier.
Videos made using portable, live-production setups can do this across your organization, too. They can help:
Resolve the inevitable scheduling bottlenecks. There’s always one colleague who’s not available when you need them, due to a conflict or other scheduling difficulty. Why not solve the problem for everyone by creating casual, customized videos passing along the basic information and processes the new hire needs to know right away?
Show specific tasks or processes (including screenshots, graphics, tables) that can serve as an ongoing reference for a newbie. Platforms like Cinamaker give you lots of tools and let you incorporate instructional materials you’ve already developed and really love, simply by rolling them into the video in real time. You can likewise pop in graphics, still photos, and other helpful aids to supplement and enrich live video from within the video software.
Craft training videos that can evolve. Change a policy? Do you have a new logo? You can swap out a shot. You can respond to feedback from your colleagues and make improvements as needed. Already shot a nice sequence, but need to add a few things for a new position? It’s simple to sync up the video streams and cut in new information and ideas.
Video can play a role almost anywhere in HR processes, from interviews to internal communications. For remote or shift workers, video may be one of the easiest ways to transmit unified messaging and information, live or recorded, in a format that is increasingly expected by YouTube natives. For a relatively small investment of time and resources, your team can be empowered to engage in authentic storytelling, to capture the knowledge and expertise of colleagues, and to give prospective employees an intriguing window into your company