The Organization of Your Video Team: Hurting or Helping?

Image courtesy of @smartworkscoworing via Unsplash

How can you continue to encourage creativity and innovation among members of your video production team? Variety.

To help keep processes streamlined and overall workflow organized, large corporations and non-profits might herd their people into verticals, assigning each working team to one particular category of accounts. Some employees might thrive in an environment like this because it allows them to grow intimately familiar with a smaller group of clients. Specialization can be useful in some instances.

Are there risks involved with this type of team structure? Yes.

Whereas account managers and team leaders might find this kind of organization helpful, creatives on the team might find it demoralizing. Why? Because creative minds are built differently. They thrive on variety.

Now, small video production companies (or in-house teams) won’t be tempted to structure their employees into verticals, because they simply just don’t have the head count to devote one video producer to only one or two clients. They need everyone to work on a little bit of everything.

But if you are the manager of a very large in-house video production team, consider the downsides to vertical realignment.

Lack of Engagement

The first reason why managers shouldn't put their video producers into verticals is that it can lead to burnout. Repeatedly creating the same type of video can quickly become tedious and monotonous, which can cause team members to become disengaged and lose motivation. This can result in a decrease in the quality of their work, leading to subpar videos that don't effectively communicate the intended message.

Lack of Creativity

Secondly, limiting video producers to specific verticals can stifle their creativity. Video production is an art form, and artists need to be able to explore different styles and techniques to continue developing their skills. If video producers are stuck creating the same type of video repeatedly, they won't have the opportunity to experiment with new ideas or push their boundaries. This can result in videos that feel stagnant and fail to capture the attention of the audience.

Lack of Content Variety

Thirdly, working within one vertical can lead to a lack of variety in the types of videos produced. Businesses need to create a diverse range of video content to effectively engage their audience and stand out from competitors. By limiting video producers to specific verticals, managers may miss opportunities to create innovative and engaging videos in other areas. For example, a video producer who specializes in creating product demos may have excellent skills that could be applied to creating a compelling brand story video or an engaging social media ad.

Lack of Skills

Finally, limiting video producers to specific verticals can prevent them from developing a broad skill set that can be useful in a variety of situations. Video production requires a range of skills, including writing, editing, sound design, and cinematography. By allowing video producers to work on different types of videos, they can develop and refine these skills, making them more versatile and valuable to the company.

While specialization can be useful in some instances, it's important for managers to understand the adverse effects that may come from a rigid working structure like verticals. By allowing creatives to work on a variety of video types, managers can prevent burnout, encourage creativity, increase variety, and help their team members develop a broad skill set that will benefit the company in the long run.