Merck's Short-Form Video Strategy Wins Over Employee Audience

At its Employee Experience Conference in Nashville, Merck's communications team revealed a new strategy for engaging employees. According to Craig Thomason, director of global employee and executive communications at Merck, the approach involves releasing short-form video content before formal training begins.

This 'before-the-fact' approach allows leaders to establish themselves as communicators and build trust with their audience. Thomason emphasized that getting employees to spend just two minutes watching these videos is often the harder part of this strategy.

Merck's efforts paid off when it posted a series of TikTok-style sketches starring a senior communications leader, which pulled in nearly 1,000 subscribers to the series before any formal lessons were released.

Thomason also stressed the importance of leaders being on board from the outset and giving employees time to understand what's happening during periods of change. He believes that this approach helps create content that meets the audience's needs rather than just answering hypothetical questions.