Human resources experts should give HR presentations to share their knowledge and their perspective with their organization and its leaders to help keep everyone working together and advance their careers. When your HR department becomes known for a few change leaders, a few experts in their fields, your organization will only become more attractive to job seekers. For HR workers, focusing on specific areas of study and discipline is a way to climb the ranks and build your organization’s brand.
Employee engagement videos are an obvious component in the winning formula of effective HR presentations. It depends on the setting and the occasion, but, when used properly, video is a great way to relay the information your HR department needs to communicate.
When Employee Engagement Videos Are Appropriate
The most appropriate settings for using video are usually internal presentation. There will be appropriate settings for video presentations in external settings, such as customer-facing events and trade shows, but video has been shown to greatly enhance engagement and improve employee communication.
No matter who you’re presenting to, you need to use video in a smart way that adds to and disseminates the information you’re presenting in an effective way, rather than unintentionally distracting your audience. Video should compliment any HR presentation, not undermine it.
Secrets of Video in HR Presentations
In Alan Collins’ “Secret Weapon to Giving Insanely Great HR Presentations” for Success in HR, he warns against using slides, handouts and flip charts because these materials take away from what the audience really wants—you. People don’t show up for handouts and slides and, in some cases—Collins warns against this as well—presenters rely on their supplementary materials too much. The lecture—the oral component—is the centerpiece of the presentation. Not even a killer video should supersede the information being delivered by the presenter.
One of the biggest mistakes presenters in any field commit is not introducing or providing a context for their extra content. If you think of the lecture as the centerpiece, everything else that goes into the presentation, from the venue and the time of day, to any additional materials, are extra. To incorporate extra material into a presentation, that material needs to be introduced so the audience knows what to do with it.
Introducing a video or two into HR presentations is a great way to break up the lecture with another medium—a visual medium—and another voice for the audience. If your audience knows why they’re being shown a video, they’ll pay better attention and respond to it in a more positive way. Another key to using video effectively is to respond to it and interact with it as much as possible. When the video is over, don’t just ignore it. Ask questions about it. Involve the audience. Show how you would respond to the video content.
Whether your HR presentation is for employee communication purposes or to show other thought leaders the secret of employee engagement videos, you can use video to create presentations people will engage with and respond to.