Think of an employee you’ve had in your business for a while, who has embodied your team values and company mission, who has been part of your journey toward world domination and quite possibly the best employee you’ve ever had. Imagine if they suddenly turned around and resigned from your organisation.
Now I know that would hurt. I used to manage multiple sales teams and retail centres in general insurance, and after countless hours mentoring one particular team member, they decided to move on. A juicy career opportunity was just too tantalising for them to stay around the call centre. I got it, no hard feelings whatsoever, but it just so happened that this employee had recently won an expenses paid trip to the Whitsundays by the company as part of a special bonus program. A video was made to illustrate to others what had happened on the trip, and was promptly hosted on the company wide Intranet to say ‘hey, look at what could be yours….’
No sooner had this employee left, that some of the management team felt that they didn’t want this person to be present in the video, that it might give the wrong message if new staff members came across the video to learn that the winner had left the organisation altogether.
I was reminded of this story recently, when The Social Adviser farewelled our awesome Client Systems Champion Ailee (don’t worry, thankfully we’ve secured an equally awesome person to join us – welcome Roy!). Being a company that operates in and creates hundreds of videos each year, there are inevitably going to be videos of Ailee either in our ‘culture pieces’ (videos that give insight into the type of organisation we are) or presenting an educational video to explain a concept, process or system.
I know that the previous business I worked in is not the only organisation that feels this way about people leaving. If you’ve utilised the power of video for your business, you are inevitably going to lose some of your team who appear in those videos. They may have a great opportunity, want to start a family, retire, or are simply relocating. Unless that employee has been let go due to a breach in policy, or did not embody your business’ core values and beliefs, here’s why you should reconsider erasing them from your ‘digital past’.
They Have Contributed To The Success Of Your Business
A business can be directed with strong leadership, but it’s the team that actually make your dream or passion work. Without the team, you have an entrepreneur or small business owner struggling to get their idea off of the ground. If your employee has moved on, what kind of message are you telling them by getting rid of them in any public videos? You’re effectively saying ‘your contribution didn’t matter. You’re replaceable’. What does that then say to the rest of your current team about their value?
Now of course, not everyone that works with you is actually going to fall into line with your company values or beliefs. Some will move on due to not fitting in, or perhaps they are lower performers and can’t keep up with the demands of the job. These people might not leave on the best of terms (it happens), and again businesses would be forgiven for wanting to ‘erase’ that person from the company’s history. But before you do, weigh up whether that person at the height of their efforts’, still embodies what your business stands for rather than reacting rashly or with emotion, or maybe whether including them in your video content is actually that big a deal at all!
So this is for public-facing, promotional or ‘cultural’ videos. What about educational content or ‘touch point videos’?
These videos are usually targeted to a specific audience, i.e. your clients or potential clients, and are used to build relationships or give them updates. They may not necessarily be publicly visible or hosted on your website.
Well, this is probably one style of video that may merit a re-shoot.
If you’re a business or professional that is really taking on the power and efficiencies that video can enable with a slew of FAQ videos, or ‘congratulations you’re a client, now what?’ video messages for example (and why wouldn’t you have some? You film them once and they rarely need updating, saving you time in the long run), then you might also have that ex-employee inadvertently building trust and familiarity with the client.
Not a major event you may think, but perhaps over time if more team members have left your organisation who have also presented these types of videos, a client can get pretty confused as to who actually works with you!
So in this case, either re-film and produce a new video, or introduce a ‘what happens next’ piece of information in the video, so that the viewer knows to contact a central generic e-mail or phone number rather that trying to contact the team member directly.
With such videos, some business owners may think “well, if people are going to leave my business, then I should be in all the videos”. Of course, this is an option, but consider the value that presenting each of these videos yourself really gives to your business versus the value of using that same time either working in or on your business. Also, getting multiple other team members to be involved in video production showcases your awesome organisation as more than just ‘you’.
Ultimately, when considering if someone who used to be in your team should get the ‘cut’ or not, always make sure that it’s weighed against the pros and cons of keeping them in. You never know where relationship that could lead in the future if your ex-employee really does go on to bigger and better things and by keeping them in your video, what’s the worst that can happen?!