Too Bad You Can't Use the the "Kissing Cam" to Pump Up Employee Engagement..

Getaway weekend for me and the family last weekend, featuring a NBA game on Friday, climbing a big rock on Saturday, and roller coasters on Sunday.  After that type of weekend, you have to come back to work to get some rest.   Takeaways from the weekend for the Capitalist:

1.  They build arenas really strong these days.  We were in Phillips Arena for a Hawks game, and apparently all hell broke lose early in the fourth quarter outside as a tornado hit the Georgia Dome and CNN Center.  I was in between both and didn't even know it was going on until we came outside.  I guess the razor-sharp basketball on display when the Hawks and Clippers get together makes you numb to what's going on around you...

2.  I'm getting old enough that my four-year old handles big roller coasters better than I do.  Seriously, the ones he could qualify for made me feel like I was going to hurl.  No impact to him.  Can the AARP card be far behind?

3.  Employees could be engaged, treaties would be signed, and wars would be avoided, if one promotion used during NBA games could be used in the workplace (or peace talks) - THE KISSING CAM.

The Kissing Cam is an entertainment feature used during various sporting events in which couples, usually one man and one woman - are shown on an arena's JumboTron and then encouraged to kiss by the rabid fan base. 

Here's the great thing about the Kissing Cam.  It brings people together, banding them together through a shared experience of cheering for others and laughing.  Engagement means a lot of things to a lot of people, but feeling like you're tied in to a mission bigger than yourself has to be somewhere in the equation.  Go to an arena, and you'll see 17,000 strangers, who won't get out of the way of each other in the concourse before the game.  Turn on the Kissing Cam, and suddenly they are cheering with each other, laughing and looking at each other to share the experience - engaged with the event and the people around them.

Of course, you can't use the Kissing Cam at your next meeting, or even your next retreat.  You'd lose your job, get sued and might even end up kissing Bob in Accounting as a result. 

So no Kissing Cam for you.  But, could you use video and humor to build the employment brand?  To actually put a little humanity and humor into your next internal communications program/promotion targeting your employees? 

Sure you could.  To give you a flavor, here's my favorite kissing cam segment from the NBA featuring Shaq and D-Wade at the end (from an actual NBA game...)

Comments

[Michael Haberman, SPHR]

Glad you survived your trip to my fair city.. I was trying to decide whether or not I needed to go to the stairwell of my temporary abode in Buckhead. As I was watching the news stories of damage and the traffic reports of people getting into downtown today I was wondering what HR departments were going thru this morning in putting things back together.