Without the Human, It’s Just Work: How ELEMENT is Helping Employees Feel Seen
According to the Harvard Business Review, 47 million Americans voluntarily left their jobs in 2021. This mass exit - now known as The Great Resignation of 2021 - proved that visibility in the workplace matters – it’s easy to quietly quit when you already feel invisible.
It was this shocking statistic that drove the initial direction and underlying story arc of Workhuman’s latest campaign, ‘Invisible’. As thought leaders in the global HR community for the last 20 years, the American multinational tirelessly advocates for recognition and wellbeing in the workplace. The objective of this latest brand campaign was to demonstrate how workplaces that “see” their employees by strategically and authentically recognising them and their work, see better outcomes than those that make their workforce feel invisible.
The concept was expertly communicated by Boston-based production company, ELEMENT, who crafted a campaign that illustrates the universal human desire to “be seen, valued, celebrated, and form meaningful emotional connections''. Blending witty situational observations with surrealist humour, the spots show how job dissatisfaction can manifest in employees searching for opportunities elsewhere.
Using humour as a storytelling device, director Wayne Craig simultaneously pokes fun at the generic, novelty gimmicks businesses throw at employees in the hopes of appeasing them (#BeyondTheSwag) while showcasing how the pervasive nature of poor company culture quickly plagues a workplace. The short films skilfully encapsulate a key Workhuman tenet: employees who feel their best, do their best.
LBB’s April Summers gets into the finer details of the work by sitting down with the creators of this adroit ad: Richard Maclachlan, senior vice president and global head of marketing at Workhuman; ELEMENT director, Wayne Craig; head of post, Kim Kelly; and producers Kristen Kearns and Eran Lobel. Looking back at the project, the teams reveal how they worked hand-in-hand to make sure the message at the heart of the campaign would be received loud and clear by working professionals everywhere.
LBB> Congrats on a great spot, team! Richard, can you tell us a bit more about the initial brief?
Richard> The initial vision for the campaign was to build Workhuman’s brand awareness in the North America and EMEA markets – this was our second year doing this at scale. This campaign was about demonstrating Workhuman is in the know about what's really going on within the world of the workplace and putting that at the forefront of our target audiences’ mind.
We came up with this concept of invisibility. We know from our data that the workplace is in turmoil right now: businesses are experiencing an economic downturn and there's a lot of uncertainty in the marketplace. We wanted to look at how the ROI of recognition in the workplace, specifically peer to peer recognition, manifests in your work culture, supports retention and turnover.
However, talking about the workplace can be a very boring exercise, so how do you add humour and candour into it? We knew we wanted to find a director that could deliver on that.
LBB> ELEMENT, when the brief came through to you, what were your initial thoughts? And how closely does it align with the finished ad?
Wayne> The entire Workhuman journey was an open process from day one. We were asked to come up with concepts that explored the differences between an office with Workhuman and one with old HR practices. The brief kept the possibilities wide open and we loved exploring them.
From our first meeting we knew we wanted the story to be human and humorous. There was a lot of brainstorming between the two teams. We wrote quite a few different scripts and tested several strong stories but, in the end, we found one that tested through the roof and committed to it.
Eran> Our initial hope was to collaborate with Workhuman’s internal creative team in a way that leveraged their brand insights and combined Wayne’s creative ability to deliver something audiences would truly care about.
Kristen> This project really allowed us to flex our production and postproduction muscle, putting our experience into action by finding easy ways to use technology that would leverage the creative vision.
LBB> The message at the heart of this spot will likely hit close to home for a lot of viewers. What do you think makes #BeyondTheSwag a great brand platform for Workhuman right now?
Kristen> On the heels of The Great Resignation, this concept was more relevant than ever. Workhuman had done a lot of research regarding challenges and opportunities in the HR space. They uncovered some really deep insights into what employees and employers care about.
Eran> Our team, along with the in house team at Workhuman really nailed the visual truth in the telling of this story. Making it a fun, topical and creative concept which felt relatable to everyone.
LBB> Wayne, how was it directing an invisible cast? Do you have any tips for getting eye-catching performances out of people we can’t see?
Wayne> We worked closely with an amazing effects team who really helped us visualise the finished product. Directing invisible people, as it turns out, is not that dissimilar from directing regular talent! It was important to imagine what the audience could see and what they could not. For the ‘invisibles’ actions to make sense we had to exaggerate some of their arm and head motions. We also used accessories like jewellery, hats and glasses so the audience would know where they were looking and where their hands were.
LBB> There’s a universality to the ad – I’m sure many of us have worked in an office like that! Where did you turn to for inspiration in terms of the look and feel of the film?
Wayne> Most of the creative team had worked in offices where they felt undervalued and/or unappreciated – it really is a universal experience. We wanted to super-charge those feelings and push them to the extreme, to make a point and to make the audience smile. I think we accomplished that. Visually, we wanted to contrast a bleak, old fashioned office with a bright, sunny modern office. The goal was to create visual metaphors that contrasted an out-of-date office and the modern day working environment provided by Workhuman. The shot design, production design and lighting were all used to reinforce the feelings we wanted the audience to experience.
LBB> Kim, how did the invisible people come together? There are great touches like watches and glasses. How did you decide what to use?
Kim> Even with the amount of VFX work done in each spot, we wanted to be as true to the practical world as possible for this project. Production began by outfitting the talent with everything from glasses and earrings to watches and necklaces - like any wardrobe fitting a stylist would do - but we knew we wanted to keep these touches as part of each character from the get-go, in order to really sell the joke. Once we got into post production, in almost all instances those small touches were rotoscoped out and then completely rebuilt in 3d, using the actual props themselves from the set. Our VFX team worked tirelessly to make each delicate accessory a part of the story.
Richard> A lot of hard calls were made during the process, specifically with the invisibility component. Double layering, shooting the same scene three times, removing the green screen suits on individuals, the clothing, the jewellery – you don't understand the power of an accessory until you've got to remove the body part that is attached to it!
LBB> Richard, this isn’t the first time Workhuman has collaborated with ELEMENT. Can you tell us a bit about what it is like working together?
Richard> This is our second year working with ELEMENT and it was phenomenal. Structurally, Workhuman does not work with any outside creative agencies because we have an in-house creative shop. However, the team has its limits, so we partnered with ELEMENT all the way through on this. Wayne and Eran were a part of every single concept meeting in the initial stages before we moved onto more intricate discussions about animatics and storyboarding everything out.
One of the changes we made from the first campaign was testing the animatics before going to market, in order to get a really good read on brand sentiment, articulation of the story, and to find out how it was landing. We would find out directly what our target audience were actually saying about the spot and then go back to the drawing board and figure out what we needed to update. We did this all hand-in-hand with the ELEMENT team.
For this project I saw ELEMENT as an invaluable part of my team – the production and storytelling arm of my organisation.
LBB> What was the biggest challenge you faced, and how did you overcome it?
Wayne> The biggest challenge was synthesising the project’s various needs and creating a single vision that everyone was excited about. Once we had great scripts and storyboards it was all about finding a fantastic production team and figuring out the logistics. It was challenging but it's what we do, and we LOVE it!
Kim> It's easy to say to a client “Yes, the green suit will be removed in post and the person will be invisible.” It is not as easy to make a client feel confident about that without seeing it done. Because of this, it was important to me to keep Workhuman involved in all stages of the process while also giving our team enough time to carry out the work to a high standard.
Production and post worked hand-in-hand on set which gave our client confidence in what we were setting out to accomplish. From there, we were in constant communication during post production, giving updates and showing sample work as it was completed. Once our first “invisible” shot was completed it set everyone’s minds at ease about how the rest of the VFX work would go. Our team spent many hours rotoscoping and compositing assets. Trying to explain to a client that you have to wait and see things can be a challenge in itself. Luckily, we had an extremely collaborative and trusting client so things went smoothly the entire way.
LBB> How was the spot received by Workhuman?
Richard> The feedback was incredible. Our founder and CEO Eric Mosley presented the film during his keynote to approximately 2,000 executives at our annual conference, Workhuman Live, which took place in San Diego this year. The realism and the truth of the story was very well received.
It was a multi-month project with ELEMENT executing that vision and making sure that we scrutinised every aspect of it because the detail really matters. We nailed the story, we nailed the delivery and we nailed the execution: from storyboards and animatic to realising it is actually better than what we thought it was going to be. The fact that it's coming from Workhuman, the recognised leader of global employee recognition technology around the world, feels even more important.
LBB> Would you do anything differently if you had your time again?
Kim> So much thought went into this project in pre-production that I can't imagine doing anything differently. The gags all worked as planned and the deep collaboration between the production and post teams allowed us to deliver our promise. The sweater shot was definitely a bigger beast than we expected, but again the communication in each phase allowed us to solve for the unexpected bigger challenge.
Wayne> We are always learning, growing, and pushing towards better communication with the audience so there are always going to be few details and discoveries along the way.
Richard> This is a huge moment for the Workhuman organisation, both in telling our story (and getting it right) to building excitement within the organisation of 1400 people that we have around the world. Sometimes how the sausage is made is not so pretty, but witnessing the process also allows an understanding of the pain points and intense thought process that we go through when creating such incredible work. We pushed the limits of what we thought was possible and wholeheartedly put our trust in ELEMENT to deliver on the vision.
Eran> I don’t think we would do anything differently. The client was so happy with the creative process and the final concept ran so deep and so wide that the deliveries surpassed original expectations. All the parties involved contributed in a way where we were really able to deliver on the vision, even as the vision evolved.
