Supporting Camera-Shy Team Members to Star in Your Employer Branding Video

The most effective employer branding videos showcase your full team. But how do you encourage less-confident employees to take part?

Video is one of the most valuable forms of media for attracting a talented and diverse workforce. However, unlike writing up a job ad, it takes time and careful planning to get it right – and that includes identifying how to best involve your employees. 

For a truly authentic experience, you need to showcase your entire workforce and share the story about what makes your company stand out from the competition –and that means getting buy-in from even the most camera-shy team members. But how can you do that in a way that doesn’t drive them away and – importantly – doesn’t come across as contrived on-screen? Here are some tips to coax all of your employees to star in your employer branding video.

Embrace your diverse workforce

It doesn’t matter what type of business you run or which industry you’re in, the key to a sustainable business is a diverse workforce. However, in practice, that means you’ll have both outgoing types who are more than happy to jump in front of a camera to market themselves and the company, and team members who want nothing to do with visual media. 

Despite our growing fixation with social media (and all the exposure that entails), many people will still run away, metaphorically screaming, at the mere mention of appearing in a company video. But that doesn’t mean you can’t find ways to encourage them to join in – no matter how small their part ends up being.

Why a strong team value proposition matters

Before you set up the camera, before you write the script, before you even broach the topic of an employer branding video with your staff, it’s critical that you define your team value proposition. This allows you to explore and uncover the unique experiences that define your team’s culture, which in turn helps you identify the messages to share as part of your employer brand work.

A strong team value proposition: 

• Defines the intricacies of your team’s culture, diversity, background and strengths.
• Is able to be easily communicated to all employees.
• Reflects the whole team’s experience.
• Can be used to generate ideas for recruiting, marketing and internal videos.

While it’s important to involve senior decision-makers in the team value proposition creation process, your team members’ experiences are also critical to nailing the culture of your workplace. 

By involving a range of employees in the process and incorporating their voices, you can ensure the team value proposition authentically represents what they value about the company – which, in turn, encourages them to buy in to your employer brand and gives them greater impetus to be involved in content creation.

Prepare your employees to adopt video 

The last thing you want to do is force your team to participate in your employer branding video. Demanding something that is essentially not in their job description can create unrest at best, and be detrimental to the overall workplace culture at worst.

Instead, think laterally about ways to get less outgoing staff members involved in video adoption. Perhaps you could encourage them to be part of the behind-the-scenes work, helping out with writing the script or setting up the lighting in the room you intend to film in. Acclimatizing them to the whole process can help generate buy-in when it comes time to record the video.

Employees may also be hesitant to be involved in the video because they believe – correctly or incorrectly – that the video will be a high-level corporate tool that pushes a glossy marketing message, rather than something that provides real insight about business and its employees.

So before you start filming, take the time to build on your team value proposition work by brainstorming with your employees about the best ways to create the video. Show them that you value each employee’s personal story and their role within the company. Explain to them that they have a unique point of view of the business and that it will be incredibly valuable for them to share it in front of the camera. 

When they understand that they are an integral part of the company and that they will play a pivotal role in attracting top talent, they may be more amenable to joining the video.

Use incentives to convince camera-shy employees

If you’re still struggling to convince some people to join your employer branding video, there could be other ways to incentivize them.

While a sudden pay rise is unnecessary, don’t undersell how much you appreciate your staff taking one for the team and getting in front of the camera – a simple ‘please and thank you’ is welcome, but it shouldn’t suffice as a valid incentive.

Instead, get creative, and wherever possible make incentives appropriate to the individual. Here are some ideas to get you started:

• Offer a paid day or afternoon off for everyone who takes part in the video.
• If the shoot will take place on a weekend, for example, offer to pay double time for the hours they are ‘on set’.
• Sit down with your team and find out exactly what they are passionate about. If they love plants and gardening, give them a low-maintenance office plant. Or if they always joke about spending too much money on takeaway coffees, get them a gift card to the office’s local cafe.

We get it – it’s not always easy to entice every member of your team to appear in your employer branding video. But with a few savvy strategies, you can create a video that offers an authentic look into what makes your company so special.

Want more information about how you can help your employees demonstrate your team value proposition? Get inspiration from VideoMyJob and book a free demo today.