Our employee spotlight video guide will provide you with easy-to-follow steps for producing videos that show off your team and business. Read on to learn about the benefits, uses, and steps you can follow to start planning an impactful employee spotlight video series for your company, and watch real video examples to get inspired…

In the ever-evolving digital marketing landscape, keeping up with the latest video trends can be a daunting task.

The more video marketing evolves, the more types of content are needed to keep your website, social media, and other channels both relevant and interesting to your audience.

Today, we’re going to share one of the most impactful types of videos a business can make: an Employee Spotlight Video. 

Not only will an employee spotlight video be useful for employer brand, HR, and recruiting teams when actively hiring but it’s also perfect for showing off your company culture.

It can help you to share your company values, build brand affinity and simply humanize your business on social media. 

Follow our simple guide to creating a great employee spotlight video:

Pick the Right Employee

The first step in any video production is choosing your subject. In this case, an employee to feature. Your employee must positively reflect your company and its values. They must be reliable and dedicated to the company and its mission. 

Here are a couple of examples:

• If your mission and focus are sales, your employee must be someone who always has their best foot forward and is a top salesperson.
• Is your aim to provide top-notch customer service? Then the employee spotlight must feature someone with a helpful and friendly attitude who has received many accolades from customers. 
• Focused on creativity and community? Feature an employee whose role and personality embodies those traits.

Let the Employee Help

The best employee spotlights are the ones where the highlighted person is a part of the process from the start. Listen to what they have to say in terms of what is comfortable for them. This will include how comfortable they are in front of the camera and what questions they are willing to answer. 

By allowing them to be a part of the creative process, the employee will be contributing to something they want to show off and share with other people. 

Employee Spotlight Video Length

When you share anything online, your content is essentially competing for attention with everything else on the internet.

The spotlight video must:

• Grab their attention
• Keep their attention
• Convey the company’s mission
• Generate real interest
• Drive the viewer to click through to learn more (either on your website or social pages)

Your goal is to achieve all of this in two and a half minutes or less. 

The Employee Spotlight Questions

How do you fit all of the above into the time allotted? While there are a few options, we recommend a Q&A/Interview style.

Some questions you may ask can include the following:

• What brought you to the company? 
• How would you describe the environment here?  
• Anything about you that some might find unexpected? 
• What’s your favorite part about working here?  

If you wish to provide more insight into the employee, asking their co-workers about them would be a smart addition to the employee spotlight template. Some questions along those lines would include:

• How would you describe [insert name here]?
• What impresses you the most about [insert name here?]

Employee Spotlight Video Format Options

We recommend 2 formats for planning an employee spotlight video:

1. Q&A

For this format, you will prepare questions and share them with the employee beforehand so they can be prepared with answers.

Their answers should be thought out and prepared beforehand, but not scripted or memorized. When it comes time to edit, the “Question” can appear on the screen as text, and then the footage of the employee will pop up as the answers. 

This type of format also makes it simple to plan a whole series of Employee Spotlight videos where you ask the same questions to multiple employees. Each employee can have their own spotlight video, then the videos can be re-purposed so each question is its own video featuring multiple employees (like the Beca video example above).

Then all employees can be featured in one comprehensive video, comparing and contrasting all of their answers with one another.

Doing this can enable your team to create a high volume of video content, suited for various channels and marketing purposes.

2. Interview 

With an interview format, you’ll have questions prepared beforehand (and share them with the employee before, too) but as you interview, you can ask relevant follow up questions and let the interview go in its own direction to bring out the best possible material and allow for a personable and candid conversation. 

In the edit, the questions won’t be displayed or heard on-screen, and this type of format will allow for a longer, more in-depth interview which can then be cut up and edited to create a more comprehensive spotlight feature. 

Filming B-Roll for the Employee Spotlight Video

The key to a spotlight video that keeps your audience’s attention is capturing good b-roll footage.

This is the footage that will be spliced in, over the employee’s answers to illustrate what they’re talking about or provide further insight to the employee or the company. B-roll also helps keeps things visually interesting and engaging. 

Here are some ideas for b-roll to film:
-Showing them in their work environment
-Showcasing any accolades from customers and any awards
-Showing the employee being interviewed (behind the scenes type shots)
-The subject walking through the office and interacting with other employees

If your subject talks about their history before working at your company (i.e. where they went to university, or the location they moved from previously) ask them to provide photos which you can edit into your video to illustrate that time in their life. 

And remember to capture b-roll after you film the employee footage, too. Shooting b-roll after will ensure you can make a point to capture things they mention during their interview.

More Ideas for Your Employee Spotlight Video

Below are examples of employee spotlight videos.

When watching them, take notes on what you like and don’t like and what you would like to mimic for your own videos:

– Framing: How close-up is the shot of the employee? Are they shot from various angles? In multiple locations?
– Style/Feel: Does the video feel casual? Formal? Conversational? 
– Editing: Does the video include on-screen graphics, titles, or captions? How is b-roll incorporated? What is the pace or energy of the video?
– How is the employee is presented? How is the company presented?

The Benefits of an Employee Spotlight Video

To put it simply, an employee spotlight video is the best way to showcase your employees and your company for multiple reasons:

For your customers: These types of videos can help your customers feel as though they know the people behind the product or service you offer.

Online ratings and text testimonials can only go so far. Producing your own employee spotlight videos can increase your bottom line by making your potential customer more comfortable clicking through to learn more, sign-up or purchase.

This means more traffic and greater revenue for you.

To attract new talent: For your Employer Brand or HR teams, employee spotlight videos are perfect for attracting new recruits, boosting interest in your company, and giving applicants an inside look at what it’s really like to work in your office and in the particular role featured.

These videos offer a behind-the-scenes look that can’t be understood in a typical job description. 

For current employee morale: These types of videos can also foster a positive, competitive atmosphere within your company.

Once one employee is chosen, the buzz to know how the video shoot was and what the process entailed will travel through the office, leading to more people who wish to be in the spotlight. This, in turn, will have the result of a more productive workforce and stronger company culture.

Additionally, for teams who work in different offices (or remotely) this type of video is great internal communications content, to keep employees engaged and feeling connected when they’re not located near each other.

In Conclusion 

The ROI of an Employee Spotlight Video can be seen across multiple important metrics like revenue, application numbers, and employee engagement.

This type of video is a fun one to plan, produce and share. It allows for creativity, collaboration, and showing off the most important aspect of any business: its people.

Contact Us to learn how EditMate can help you create an Employee Spotlight Series for your company.