Improving Business Communication with HR Webinars

Human resources can take many forms. In the eyes of most staff, the HR team is in charge of onboarding new staff, and it makes sure that everyone gets paid.

From there, it gets a bit murky. Everyone can see that the HR staff is busy. But doing what, exactly?

But you know how demanding and varied the role can be. And you need to communicate this clearly to the whole team - especially new staff. More importantly, you need to show other staff how HR impacts their day-to-day, and what you need from them.

In this post, we’re going to show you how webinars can be a valuable tool for business communication. Webinars help you communicate clearly, far and wide, and without investing enormous energy.

But before we go into detail, let’s look at the main responsibilities of modern HR teams.

Key functions of your HR team

Let’s really spell out what HR professionals do all day. While there’s a lot on this list, there’s also plenty that we haven’t mentioned.

Human resources is responsible for:

• Recruiting and training new staff
• Record keeping and tax compliance
• Payroll and benefits
• Performance reviews and professional development
• Employee relations
• Legal compliance

Even if some of these functions involve other teams - you may have a dedicated legal or finance department, for example - they’re under the HR umbrella.

And you need clear and concise ways to communicate these roles to the rest of the company. Which is where webinars can be incredibly useful.

Why HR webinars make so much sense

Webinars have a few key characteristics that should appeal to busy HR professionals who want to streamline their business communication:

They’re one-to-many

The more your company grows, the quicker your day-to-day responsibilities add up. Where you once had one new person to onboard each week, now you may have five or ten.

They’ve all got different job descriptions, and many won’t even be in the same location. Webinars help you reach them all at once, even in remote offices and different countries.

They’re recordable

HR teams spend a lot of time repeating the same information. It’s important information, of course. But telling every new staff member the same basic details - or delivering the same employee the same details six times - can be tiresome.

And it’s not just the basics. Human resources regularly has high-value news to share, and key processes to explain. These can be done in an “all hands” staff meeting, but what happens when people can’t attend?

Presenting these meetings via webinar (and webcasting your in-person meetings) means you have a record for everyone to refer to.

Spendesk uses Livestorm for exactly this reason. The team livestreams all team meetings for remote workers to attend, and then makes the recordings available. Which means all information is obtainable to everyone, forever.

They’re accessible from anywhere

One thing that can slow down business communication is trying to get everyone in the same room at the same time. You want to be efficient, which means you really want to talk to everyone at once.

Which means you often need to wait until the best possible time to present information - a time that suits everyone.

Webinars make this less necessary. If people can’t make it into the meeting room, they can join from wherever. And if they can’t make a certain time, they can always watch the replay.

How webinars help with specific HR functions

We looked at the key roles for HR teams above. So now let’s see how webinars and web conferences can help you execute these roles.

Recruitment

Webinars for recruitment aren’t yet as common as they are for sales or marketing. But they give you a great opportunity to meet and present to a range of candidates at once, without much time and effort from either you or them.

For companies receiving dozens of CVs each week, this is a great way to sort out who’s serious about the job, and to make your first pitch. That’s efficiency at its best.

To do this, simply organize an introductory webinar for all job prospects. Explain the history of the company, the culture, and what kinds of candidates you’re looking for. Candidates can then interact and ask questions, and both sides can see if there’s a good fit.

You can even do this for each open position if you have enough CVs coming in. This is a nice first step, especially if you have a long or difficult application process. Candidates can be sure that it’s worth investing their time, and you’ll be able to turn away some bad fits before the process wastes anyone’s time.

Onboarding and training

Onboarding new staff can be incredibly repetitive. There are certain details you have to deliver in essentially the same way to every new member of staff.

While it’s important to meet new team members in-person and establish a rapport, doing everything face-to-face is a large burden.

Webinars let you conduct onboarding from anywhere, to a whole induction class at once. If an attendee (or the presenter) can’t be physically in the room, the workshop can still go ahead.

Since they can be recorded, some information can be presented once and then shared with each subsequent employee.

You wouldn’t want to do 100% of your onboarding through a computer screen. But this is a great way to speed up the process for the HR team while still delivering all important information.

Legal and financial compliance

This is an incredibly important part of the HR portfolio, but one that only impacts the rest of the company from time to time. While you may have to know all the ins and outs, most staff will only remember the rules at the moment you explain them.

This leads to two problems. Either:

1. You have to remind individual staff about rules and regulations you’ve already explained; or
2. You have a lot of non-compliant behavior in your company.

Neither is a good outcome.

This is why it’s vital to record your irregular workshops. Instead of needing to walk every forgetful team member through each issue, they can simply refer back to your presentation.

Payroll and benefits

For modern companies, a lot of the payroll process is now done through tools and online. Which means there’s new technology for staff to tackle whenever they need to access payslips or apply for leave.

HR teams can use recorded webinars to explain these processes, just as we’ve seen above. Anything to keep people from bothering you with the same boring questions.

But the added benefit of webinars is screensharing. HR teams can create short walk-through videos using their webinar software, without any technical or video editing skills.

Of course, there are plenty of other ways for creative HR teams to use webinars. The goal should be to cut down on repetition, and still ensure that every team member has the information they need to succeed.

The real value of HR webinars is efficiency

When you find yourself repeating the same processes over and over, it’s time to rethink your approach.

As we’ve seen, webinars are ideal because they let you talk to as many people as you need to, without always going over old ground. If the topic is evergreen, you simply record the presentation and share it with everyone.

If there’s something new and pressing to explain, webinars ensure that you can reach everyone in a way that suits them, without having to go out of your way.

HR pros are too busy and too valuable to the business to waste precious time rehashing the same topics. Now, you don’t have to.