'Let's get to know' film series – for Imerys

Video is a powerful way to bring colleagues together. It’s an effective way to enable human connections across the workplace and to build trust, empathy and collaborative environments.

For Imerys, a global organisation of more than 16,000 employees, we edit short ‘talking heads’ films where colleagues from all functions and at all levels share information and their careers and interests.

The aim is for these films to celebrate diversity of insight and cultures across the organisation; motivate colleagues – and new starters particularly – highlighting the breadth of job roles and potential career journeys; and share expertise and best practice.

We launched the Let’s get to know series early in 2020, creating an animated intro and questions and finding the right music to use for each film. We supply a long list of questions, from which interviewees select between five and eight to answer and then film their responses on smartphones or handheld cameras. The communications team supplies their recorded answers and supplementary footage – from around their working environment or reflecting their outside interests (we’ve used pictures of pets and children, favourite books, sporting and fundraising achievements, and even recordings of original songs) – and we edit these into films up to four minutes long, adding English subtitles for all films (some interviewees present their answers in local language). We add new questions every so often.

The films are posted on the client’s intranet and have proved popular; we are now producing between 10 and 20 every year. They gather positive comments and likes from employees who love to see their co-workers featured.

Sometimes the videos are published externally with no edits, and we have edited others as Meet the team films, which have been posted on social channels for customers to learn more about what Imerys does and its work to be a partner of choice.