The surprising cost of NOT having a company culture video.
When your teammates quit, just what kind of team are you left with? I worked for a mid-sized ad agency that each week would send out emails announcing departing employees. I watched the revolving door spinning, and it left me with two takeaways: First, I was missing out—the grass was greener literally everywhere else. Second, the constant turnover left the agency with no discernible culture. Nobody knew the history of the shop, its mission, its struggles, and its victories. Morale was low, and the survivors had little incentive to try. This agency had become a shell—a building with cubicles and free coffee.
And that was before the pandemic. With remote working, keeping a culture alive takes incredible effort. How can you create and maintain company culture over Zoom? You don’t even have free coffee to bring people together. And what’s worse is that while your employees may be "WFH," odds are they're also perusing new jobs.
If all this doesn’t bother you, then maybe a look at the numbers might. Some studies suggest that replacing a salaried employee can cost 6 to 9 months’ salary. So for a manager making $60,000 a year, that's $30,000 to $45,000 in recruiting and training expenses. Replacing an executive can cost more than 200% of their salary. Add in lost productivity, lost expertise, and new employee errors—it’s time to resolve that revolving door.
By creating a company culture video, you can attract like-minded people to your mission. An empathetic core message can inspire your existing team, and even strengthen retention when financial incentives from greener pastures try to lure them away. This message must not be chest-beating, but an honest definition of your goals and values. In other words, your WHY.
When hiring, if you’re not a tech company with deep pockets, a company culture video can help you compete. Take Wider Circle, which promotes healthcare for seniors. Wider Circle's mission is “Connecting neighbors for better health.” But to bring their mission alive, we focused on a truth: Everybody needs somebody to lean on. It became the emotionally resonant hook to rally their team and potential recruits.
I teared up when learning how Dulce Dagda, a Wider Circle leader, was embraced by her group after the death of her own grandmother. They told her, “You now have forty grandparents with you forever.” Dagda paused, “That is not a salary that can be paid.”
The expense of a film like Wider Circle’s can be amortized. We also created an anthem video, various individual stories for social media, and a film to welcome the new hires. Our small production team kept the budget down, and I directed and edited. In addition, we built a photo library by shooting portraits and candids at the same time. In just a few weeks, we had overhauled the brand’s asset library and website.
So how high is the cost of not making a company culture film? Today with remote working, getting everyone on your team in lockstep is critical. A culture film can galvanize fickle employees by connecting with their hearts. You'll also attract new talent to your mission, not just to your money.