This guest post is by Miri Zena McDonald, a strategic communications consultant. Miri tweets at @miri_orgchange. She attended the Marcus Evans 6th Annual Employee Engagement and Internal Communications Conference in Orlando.
Safeway has about 1,700 stores across the U.S. and Canada, and about 186,000 employees in 10 regional divisions. Dan Pryor, vice president of corporate communications, said a key part of the communication department’s mission is to build the channels for communication, not just create content. To do that, he created a employee portal that includes a number of sophisticated features. The content is customized based on user groups, and managers can easily share content with their districts. The portal also includes social media features, such as the ability to post comments and rate content with a “thumbs up” or thumbs down.”
Given the nature of the grocery business, many employees don’t have regular access to computers at work. Pryor turned to video in the break rooms to address this challenge, creating videos to share news, as well as highlight programs related to recycling, community involvement and customer service.
The company recently launched a video campaign called “Real Retail” to promote the company’s vision and mission through true stories about employees. As part of his presentation, Pryor shared one of the videos, which emphasized going above and beyond for customers. It featured a a bakery department worker who personally delivered a cake to a customer’s house because she had a flat tire and needed the cake for a big part that day. Pryor shared that each of these videos only cost about $5,000 to produce. “Employees like hearing their co-workers real stories and it has helped us explain our mission in a creative and easy-to-understand way.”
Pryor shared his tips for creating a video series:
- Use managers and employees as presenters, not actors.
- Provide presentation skills training. Most people have never been filmed before and need training before going in front of a camera.
- Track attendance and usage to find out how many people are using the video.
- Market the video events internally to boost viewership.
- Create engagement through polls and tests. Continue the conversation after the video is viewed to reinforce messaging.
- Make the content compelling.
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You've got to be kidding to think this is innovative. "Corporate Television," once referred to as "Industrial Television," has been in the business of keeping employees informed since the mid-1979s..
People learn better by seeing versus hearing. Also, employees are more likely to watch something they helped put together.
How do you track the attendance and usage to find out how many people are using the videos?
Safeway is a laggard when it comes to Store Execution Management. Instead of sending videos, they should be improving visbility in real time, empowering store managers (instead of kicking the crap out of them) with a best of breed task management application.
@Robert, there were no claims this was innovative. I think the message is how to be more effective at employee engagement.
This sounds like a great idea and is used by other very large corporations. One of the very largest added equipment to their break rooms to provide maximum break time rest for their employees- Hot Logic Food Warmers. Now their employees are not standing in lines at the microwave oven area and can sit and enjoy a hot meal while watching promotional video content and company messages.
Many grocers are using Task Management from a company called Reflexis as a great way to communicate with their stores and to correct execution problems in real time. Perhaps Safeway could look at enhancing their communications process with a best of breed task management tool.
A number of retailers both large and small are discovering a proven email based rich media communications platform called "Brainshark". If you want to cost effectively communicate key marketing and personnel information along with training and feedback requests this is the technology to utilize.
All user interface can be tracked.
SEM systems like RP and Reflexis work but are too complex and expensive for most retailers to fully utilize and see any type of measurable ROI.
I'd love to know what technology they used to film and then post. Was this cheaply done? Were videos heavily edited before they were posted? Who recorded original video? How were files shared? For smaller companies, video is a great idea, but can look sloppy if not managed professionally. I'm working on a similar type project and would love some details.