TrueCar levels-up their internal communications and training with mmhmm video

TrueCar may have built its business around cars, but it doesn’t subject its employees to a daily commute. As a fully-distributed company with about 450 employees in 40 states, TrueCar’s Employee Engagement and Experience team thinks about how to help everyone in the company feel included without making them travel to one another. And one of the tools they use to bring creativity and novelty to their team communication is mmhmm.

“mmhmm adds an extra layer of dimension to what could otherwise be a static presentation. I think it's more fun for whoever's hosting, and the same goes for the audience. It's just more engaging and interesting to watch,” said Alex Anderes, Internal Communications Manager for TrueCar.

“mmhmm adds an extra layer of dimension to what could otherwise be a static presentation."

Alex Anderes

Internal Communications Manager, TrueCar

Liz Eisenberg, Senior Manager of Employee Engagement and Experience, also recognizes the importance of breathing life into the potential monotony of back-to-back video meetings and to encourage asynchronous communication, especially for distributed teams. “We've felt really strongly about mmhmm from the moment we learned about it as a platform. There's a lot of opportunity to creatively engage with employees in more fun and dynamic ways,” Eisenberg said.

When the TrueCar team launched the company’s new intranet, The Garage, they turned to mmhmm to create something their staff had never seen before. “Because The Garage was new, we wanted a fresh angle on how to present this versus me just sharing my screen and clicking along,” said Anderes.

In keeping with the car theme, Anderes had fun layering himself on top of his screen share while wielding an actual wrench to point out key features. Because he prerecorded his segment, he didn’t have to worry about getting stage fright. “mmhmm lets you have a little fun, but in a controlled way. Some of that stuff is hard to pull off live in the moment but when you can do it just with your computer observing you, it feels a lot easier than going live on a stage, even in the virtual capacity,” he said.

Anderes also appreciates being able to do what trained AV designers can do with an app that is simple to use. “It takes real skill to produce other types of video, with After Effects and these really robust tools that usually take a formal education to learn,” he said. “mmhmm is very much self-taught. You don’t need to go back to school to learn it.”

Anderes and Eisenberg are excited to integrate mmhmm into more of their employee experiences as they drive towards summer programming. “With weekly updates from our executive team, monthly town halls, trainings, and other frequent communications, we have a lot of ways to keep us connected even though we’re not all under one roof,” said Anderes.