According to research recently carried out in the HR community, 'video snacking' has reached epidemic proportions.
Producers of business videos Video Arts spoke to 100 HR professionals, and discovered that 90% of them spend part of their day video snacking, with more than half of them doing so during the working day.
Video snacking, for the uninitiated among you, is the habit of spending small chunks of time, typically five or six minutes at a time, digesting information from PCs or mobile phones. While many people do this at lunch or during their daily commute, more and more are doing it on the quiet at work.
Four per cent of those surveyed admitted that their video snacking accounted for half an hour of their working day, everyday.
There are two issues to consider here. Firstly, should employers be condoning what really constitutes theft of their time? Why should they overlook video snacking, when they obviously wouldn't cast a blind eye to someone sitting at their desk reading Hello.
Secondly, should employers accept that technology is here to stay, and use it for business purposes? Only half of the employers surveyed are using online tools to communicate with their staff, despite one in five of them advocating the use of online video clips, blogs and webcasts as part of their internal communications programmes.
According to Martin Addison, Video Arts' managing director, "It seems that HR and training managers are missing a trick when it comes to capitalising on the rise of video snacking. The format offers the perfect way to deliver a short training clip that can reinforce a key business message to an employee when and where it is needed. It is also ideal for those looking for something more than passive lunchtime viewing."
Three quarters of respondents would consider giving staff access to a digital library of short training clips, admitting that this would be a cost-effective and efficient method of delivering training. What's stopping them?
Comments (3)
Posted by Helen Love | May 23, 2008 10:58 AM
The issue here is not really around the work time viewing of video snippets by employees, but more to do with a bigger engagement concern: trust. If we start to police use of online and social media during work time, that sends a very clear message saying “we do not trust you”. This in turn can lead to disengagement and reduced productivity. Better to show your people you trust them to use this medium in an appropriate and effective manner. Better still to be proactive and harness the use of video snacks as “digestible chunks” for internal purposes such as news, education, awareness and training.
Posted on May 23, 2008 10:58
Posted by Wayne Clarke | May 27, 2008 8:22 AM
Snacking satisfies a hunger, right? Are people really stealing time or just satisfying a hunger that would just be met in other ways? The issue is our attitude toward time - actually, it’s the old scarcity vs abundance perception issue. Sure, some people will abuse it and spend hours watching sneezing pandas and the like. I argue, however,that the ‘glass half full’ option is to think about cultivating a culture that forwards the organisational agenda based on top line growth, as opposed to the scarcity approach of cutting costs (or identifying wasted time). It’s about people feeling free enough to get engaged, innovate and implement. And freedom, by the way, does not always come for free.
Posted on May 27, 2008 08:22
Posted by Carolann Edwards | May 27, 2008 11:39 AM
Relax, as long as it’s a snack and not a dinner the business benefits will flow through to the bottom line. After all, searching, typing, downloading and saving are all transferable skills which improve the performance of even the most diehard of ‘digital natives’.
It’s time for HR and Training to wear the chef’s hat and improve the menu so that tasty clips on topics like client care, participating in appraisal and effective team-working pop up on screen as dessert. Training with high nutritional value leads to satisfied employees. Who says that we can’t all have our cake and eat it!
Posted on May 27, 2008 11:39