The way the world works has changed dramatically since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Within a matter of weeks, millions, if not billions, of employees were forced out of their offices and into their homes.

Although the challenge has been unprecedented, technologies like webcasting and video conferencing have helped maintain business continuity through live video broadcasts. This is because face-to-face communications — even virtually — remain one of our most valuable resources for motivating and engaging remote employees.

In fact, research from Kollective has shown that as many as 65% of workers are ‘visual learners’, who engage best through face-to-face communication. Now especially, it is important for leaders to embrace live video to reassure and instil confidence in their workforce.

The importance of executive visibility

In 2007, McKinsey & Company wrote an article on the CEO’s role in leading business transformation. More than a decade later, its central message still rings true:

"CEOs who give only lip service to a transformation will find everyone else doing the same. Those who fail to model the desired mind-sets and behaviour or who opt out of vital initiatives risk seeing the transformation lose focus. Only the boss of all bosses can ensure that the right people spend the right amount of time driving the necessary changes."

Put simply, the most effective CEOs are those who stand in front of their companies to assert meaningful change. Leaders must be visible to reinforce behaviours and values that make new ideas stick – live video can help.

How to become a visible boss

Live video offers many of the same benefits as in-person meetings. Whether you need to energise your company’s culture, navigate challenging times or are trying to achieve buy-in for a corporate initiative, live video lets you leverage emotion and bond with a distributed workforce. Here’s a quick guide to getting started:

1. Outline your strategy

Developing a clear strategy with all the right stakeholders is a critical first step to becoming a visible boss and increasing executive visibility. This requires:

• An outline of the desired engagement, transparency and education outcomes
• A pre-decided tone of voice and appropriate visual style for the video message
• The key company message touchstones that need to be put in place

2. Select the right platform

The emergence of live video meeting platforms like Microsoft Teams and Zoom makes broadcasting your message technically easier and quicker to implement than ever before. To ensure you’re using the right platform and video production approach, start by asking these questions:

• Who will be watching this event and how large will the audience be?
• Where is the audience located and what percentage will be joining live?
• What communication style is needed? Is it a formal event with multiple speakers or a more casual team meeting?
• How confident am I using a self-service platform? Do I need additional video production support to achieve my goal for this event?

3. Use your resources

For those of you who generally enjoy telling your company story in presentations and auditoriums, transitioning to live video is simply a case of translating that experience through coaching and encouragement from enterprise video experts.

You can also join workshops to learn how to craft your story, practice your technique and hone messaging. The key point is to challenge yourself constantly to tell the best, engaging, most transparent story you can in the most clear and concise manner possible.

Using those resources to help your employees feel safer in work by ensuring they have access to COVID-19 tests if required can also make a huge difference. Learn more here.  

4. Analyze your performance

When it comes to analysing event performance, it’s not just about how many people watched the video; there’s so much more than data can teach you.

For example, knowing the geography of where your viewers are located, the average viewing duration and their quality of experience, you gain insight into how employees consume and engage with content.

The future of work

Although some countries are beginning to transition back to the workplace, not everyone will return at once, or even for eight hours a day.

Instead, this elastic workforce will split their time between the office and their homes, which means a continued reliance on video conferencing platforms to deliver important communications.

As you’ve read in this article, however, improving executive visibility isn’t as simple as sending out an invitation and starting to talk. It takes strategy, buy-in, and a reliable technology solution to deliver your message at scale.

Dan Vetras is CEO of Kollective Technology.