Providing employees high-quality, cost-effective training that develops their skills, shares the latest news, and gives your organization an edge is challenging enough. What if your employees are scattered over different countries, languages, and cultures? 
Large organizations consider it critical to simultaneously disseminate a wide range of information to their global employee base. Many of our clients have truly global businesses that create a political and cultural imperative to share information with everyone at the same time. If for example, you’re headquartered here in the states and have a large development group in Europe with production facilities in China communicating with them all simultaneously is a real challenge.

In our experience working with a number of international companies, there’s always a feeling from remote units that they’re second-class citizens, “always the last to hear.”
In the past, you’d send executives and trainers to each outpost—an expensive and time-consuming effort that spreads leadership thin. Between language and cultural differences, you were never quite sure what message was getting across and how it was being received.

We know video is an immensely valuable training tool, and its versatility particularly shines in responding to the needs of global organizations. Briefing, training, and human resources videos can:

 

  • Deliver the same information simultaneously to an unlimited number of venues and people, through existing infrastructure.

  • Form a library of resources which can be consulted anytime, anywhere, and can be easily modified or updated.

  • Easily incorporate local regulations, laws, or procedures that may differ from one site to the next.

  • Communicate a consistent organizational culture, including company vision, values, goals, procedures, and branding.

  • Be culturally sensitive to the individual needs of communities, including approach, graphic images, dress, and other cultural factors. This sets a company-wide standard of respect, belonging, and diversity.

  • Be easily translated into local languages. Globalization has promoted easy access to translators everywhere, and made both text and narration affordable. Receiving information in their native language greatly increases your employees’ retention and accurate application of new knowledge.

Using video to distribute the same information to everyone, virtually at once, and then having local management handle local questions, makes even the most remote locations feel appreciated and informed. Your executives can stay home, where they’re needed, and you can be sure you’re broadcasting a consistent message that doesn’t get distorted in the process of communication.

For successful outcome, it’s important to do your homework thoroughly, and this is true in proportion to the remoteness of the location. The video must be sensitive to ethnic and cultural characteristics of the community in question. What might be seen as amusing in Houston could well be insulting or inappropriate in Shanghai.

Crossing time zones add complexity to releasing materials (noon here is a miserable time of day for work in China). It’s important to either “follow the sun” and roll material out early in each location or pick a time that allows everyone to view simultaneously.

Localized language requires a high degree of precision; you must use translators from, or exceeding familiar with, far-flung or secluded locales. And local management must be well prepared to respond to questions.

Video is a massively beneficial and affordable route to training and informing your global workforce, and we can help.