Internal communication animated video: How to innovate your employee engagement strategy

Let’s look back at what your HR department has done to sometimes communicate with all employees. A lengthy newsletter email with text and static images is one of the popular go-to channels. Most employees will tend to leave it aside for work-related emails, then, unfortunately, forget to re-check it. Holding company-wide meetings seem to be a great way for a new product introduction. But rarely can you get all employees involved, as everyone has their own busy schedule. Are these situations exactly what you are dealing with? So, it’s time to think about innovating your strategy by utilizing internal communication animated video. 

Why do we suggest animation videos as an effective tool, and how can we use them for internal communication? Let’s find out in this article.

First of all, why does employee communication deserve more attention and effort?

We all have heard that excellent internal communication creates employee satisfaction. The more employees feel appreciated and recognized, the harder they want to work. They, in turn, gain more passion and commitment to their work, as well as increasing loyalty to the company. 

According to McKinsey, enterprises that focus on enhancing employee communication can push their productivity by 20% to 25%. And importantly, that contributes up to US$1.3 trillion potential annual revenue. 

However, in practice, internal communication effort has not yet yielded satisfactory results. In the United States only, 70% of employees claim they don’t feel engaged with their companies.

Statistics also show that email or intranet-based business communication is insufficient to capture employees’ attention and engagement.

• Each employee receives 120 emails per day on average. All say that they need to prioritize important emails for work. And your HR emails easily get lost in overfull mailboxes. 
• Only 13% of employees check their company’s intranet daily, while more than 30% said that they have never done that. Furthermore, 80% of remote workers complain about the limited access to the intranet.

That’s why you need some innovative factors to level up your employee communication strategy. And our recommendation is the internal communication animation video. 

Can animated videos make internal communication better?

Animation video is becoming a favored creative format in the digitalization era. This type of content is so supportive for all employee engagement channels since:

It’s easier to grasp. Almost all animated videos are in short form, which focuses on one core message. Compelling visuals with motion graphics make them livelier compared to a wordy explanation. These help watchers to comprehend information quicker and better.

It’s more impressive and memorable. Animated videos give a multisensory experience of both sight and hearing. People can only recall 20% of the information when hearing without visuals but can remember almost 50% of the information they hear and see.  

It motivates employees to engage more. Research shows that when the email subject includes the word “video,” you can significantly increase the opening rate by 19%. Additionally, people tend to view videos in greater detail while just glancing over writings or podcasts. 

So, how to utilize internal communication animated video?

You have understood the importance of internal communication and the supporting role of animation videos in this strategy. Then, let’s go over some of the most common scenarios in which your HR department should use animated video to leverage internal communication. 

#1 For company activities updates

#2 For employee communication practice

#3 For corporate training

#4 For recruitment and onboarding

#1 For company activities updates

As an HR Manager, you must have noticed the issue of cross-department connections within the company. It’s challenging to get different groups to work well together, especially in larger corporations. Some are not aware of other co-workers’ responsibilities, so they do not know how to support each other. 

Publishing some animated videos to update company activities to all employees can solve the problem. The contents are about what other departments are doing, what are the key results, and how this affects businesses. A typical day of different departments can be another idea. It’s similar to your weekly or monthly newsletter but in a more interesting and appealing format. 

Company updating videos can help to increase company transparency as they recognize the performance of other colleagues. This results in effective sharing of the company’s broad knowledge, and this improves cross-department networks. Moreover, everyone will feel they’re part of a unified team and that they are all appreciated as valued members. 

For example, the Project Online team of QBE has developed a new tool for their online internal project management. They order F.Learning Studio to produce the below communication animated video to introduce the tool to their global workforce. 

#2 For employee communication practice

To improve the internal communication among employees, HR departments usually hold regular teamwork activities within the company. In most cases, trainers just talk about how employees can improve their skills through communication and collaboration as a team. Then there can be a small practice via quizzes or discussions. And that’s why employees are not willing to participate in such tiresome activities.  

Instead, imagine that they team up to make their animation video by themselves. Its topic may be anything from introducing their departments to presenting a certain topic on the training list, and so on.

They will need to collaborate on everything from brainstorming, searching, and selecting information to create a complete video script. Afterward, the media team will produce the actual video based on their script. The better the outputs are, the more efficient communication and collaboration of the members are.   

Animation video-making activities bring much more entertainment to your employees. They can practically leverage their communication skills, not to mention their research and management ability while completing the project. 

#3 For corporate training

Due to the impact of COVID-19, many HR departments must move their internal training activities online. It has great advantages, but the lack of in-person interactions makes previous learning materials seem not to be engaging anymore.

Instead of using old infographics and slides, why don’t you turn this knowledge into an internal communication animation video? They can cover various topics, from abstract topics like skill training to dry-and-dull topics like corporate compliance. With animation videos, you can simplify the training content by adding interesting and fun factors. Visuals and motion graphics are always more attractive, and this helps learners quickly commit knowledge to memory.

Tip: For a realistic illustration, you can utilize the storytelling approach by using work-related situations. The scenario-based content makes the training more true-to-life, motivating employees to learn and be engaged throughout the course.  

This is a typical training video using a storytelling approach, produced by F.Learning Studio. The story explains business structure concepts in a much more relatable and simple way to understand. 

Also, take a look at 

• Amazing advantages of storytelling method in corporate training

• Tips To Make Corporate Training Videos Interesting

#4 For recruitment and onboarding

Most recruiters are concerned with making their job postings stand out among the numerous competitors out there. If you wish to stand out, do not use text-based job posting on online platforms anymore. You need a more active format to get candidates’ attention. 

The animation video will do just that. Instead of describing, visualizing the key details of the position will make your postings different and easier to understand. 

Moreover, you can include videos that introduce the company, such as its missions and values, workspace, benefits, etc. You will want to show the wonderful work-life at your company to attract potential candidates. 

Tip: For the best introduction, reuse videos of company profiles or videos about hiring departments as mentioned above. Watching company culture videos that focus on employees’ stories will allow candidates to know how your company appreciates employees.

The final step of a successful recruitment process is onboarding. But in the case of the onboarding session, saying the same things about the company and regulatory over and over again can sometimes be tiring. 

So, think about replacing both in-office and remote onboarding speeches with internal communication animation videos. Animation video with motion graphics is surely more appealing and engaging than PowerPoint slides. 

You can break the whole session into different introduction topics, including general knowledge, work culture, how-to, or best practices. Then place them in a sharing hub like a handbook for every new hire. In this way, they can rewatch anytime they need, without asking others. 

Helpful tips for effective internal communication animation

• Keep it short

Stick only to the core message and remove any unnecessary information in a communication animated video. It’s important to keep in mind that people rarely view video content that’s longer than four minutes for a particular subject.

Employees’ attention can also decrease over time. It’s better that your videos get to the main point and core message within the first 30 seconds. 

• Have an excellent script with storytelling

A successful video usually tells an emotional story. Choose a storyline about the character that connects to your employee so that employees can feel themselves in the stories. 

Regarding video scripts, you should follow a basic but always effective structure. It should contain an attractive start, a good description in the middle, and a clear end. 

• Ensure brand compliance by using the brand guideline

As it relates to “communication,” it requires brand consistency. You need to use the logo, sticking to the corporate color palette, fonts, and typography that follows the brand guideline. Ensure that all these factors are consistent in all videos within your content plan to enhance your employees’ recognition. 

We recommend you work closely with the marketing department to build the most useful brand guideline for internal purposes.

Recommended reading: 

• Branded Learning: 4 Tips to Remain Brand Compliance in Employee Training Programs

In short

Keeping employees well-updated and motivated is definitely an important goal of every HR department. Despite all the technological advancements, animation videos stand out as the most engaging and effective content that strengthens internal communication strategy. Do not forget to take them into account when building your upcoming plan. 

In case you need help in employee communication animated video creativity, give F.Learning Studio a try! We are an expert in animation production for corporate purposes, with a clear and easy-to-follow process for the best collaboration. 

Read More 

• What’s Sinking Your Employee Engagement Videos And How To Fix It

• 3 Creative Virtual Employee Engagement Ideas to Build a Successful Corporate Training Program

• 4 Tips to Hire an Animation Studio that Ace your Corporate Training