How to Co-Create Content With Employees | Inside VCA's Co-Creation Strategy
How a solo employer brand practitioner gets busy staff to create authentic content - without the friction. Welcome to Episode 3 of the 'Co-Created" Series with Employer Content Club.
When Ally Brown joined VCA Animal Hospitals, she faced a challenge familiar to many employer brand practitioners: how do you create authentic content when your workforce is busy doing their job?
VCA operates over 1,000 veterinary hospitals across the US and Canada. Their associates are deskless workers with packed appointment schedules. Yet Ally is building an employee-generated content programme as a solo practitioner.
Here’s how.
Start Where Your Audience Already Is
VCA took an unconventional approach: they started with student creators before building an employee generated content programme.
“The veterinary industry is a very competitive talent market,” Ally explains. “Companies are trying to get these students straight out of school.”
Rather than focussing inward first, VCA partnered with veterinary students who were already creating content. These students knew the platform, understood the audience (because they were the audience), and often had existing connections to VCA through externships or family pets.
The content performed well so VCA amplified it with paid media to reach experienced professionals too.
Treat Employees Like Creators, Not Subjects
This is where many organisations get it wrong.
“The key is to treat them like creatives,” Ally says. “We brief them with ideas, just as you would a creative agency, with our goals and background information. Then we let them pitch us back what their concepts are.”
This isn’t about handing employees a script. It’s about providing a creative brief, sharing your goals, and giving them freedom to bring ideas to life in their own way.
One associate described how their team helped cats who were in a house fire by saying he felt “like the Megazord on Power Rangers.” That’s the kind of specific, human detail you can’t get from a scripted corporate message - and something AI could never write.
Make the Ask About Recognition, Not Work
Getting buy-in from busy employees isn’t about making the request smaller - it’s about reframing what it means.
“Make them feel special,” Ally explains. “Let them know, ‘We want to hear from you specifically and here’s why - we heard about the amazing things you’re doing, your career history, and we want to spotlight that.’”
The ask becomes recognition. An honour.
Ally also works through hospital managers to facilitate requests, which gives employees permission within their schedule and adds another layer of “you’ve been chosen for this.”
Remove Every Possible Point of Friction
Even when employees want to participate, logistics can kill momentum.
Ally uses Vouch because it removes friction: “You don’t have to download an app. You just send a link off and it’s super easy to record.”
The tool guides employees through pre-set questions, helps you edits clips together, adds subtitles, and deliver polished video testimonials.
“We tell them, ‘It’s going to take five minutes to record,’” Ally says. “When you’re framing it that way and giving tips so they feel confident, that helps.”
The principle: If you make participation hard, busy people will choose their day job every time.
Use Audio When Video Isn’t Possible
During a photo shoot at one of their hospitals, getting quality video content proved difficult between managing the shoot and keeping on schedule.
Ally’s solution: follow up afterwards and capture audio testimonials.
“We layered the audio on top of the visuals and put it into a fun animation graphic with music behind it,” she explains. These audio-driven ads are now running across Google, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Facebook.
The approach creates personal, intimate content through voice whilst making photo shoots more manageable.
Let AI Handle the Grunt Work, Not the Story
As a solo practitioner, Ally calls AI her best friend - but with clear boundaries.
“If AI writes a story, it’s going to sound fake,” she notes. “You still need that human to share their personal feelings, but AI can help you unlock it.”
Ally uses AI for writing questions, ideating content formats, and speeding up brainstorming. But she always maintains human judgement: “I’m selecting the questions I like. I definitely don’t just take all of them.”
She also maintains a library of go-to questions for spontaneous opportunities - like when associates stop by the VCA booth at exhibitions.
The Three Core Principles
If you’re building an employee-generated content function:
1. Treat your employees like creators. Give them creative briefs and ideas. Let them bring concepts to life in their own unique way.
2. Make them feel special. Frame participation as recognition. Highlight why you’re asking them specifically - their project, their journey, their impact.
3. Get the questions right. Use AI to help craft specific questions that unlock unique stories in 60 seconds or less. Build a library so you’re ready when opportunities arise.
Why Co-Creation Matters
Employer brand functions are shrinking. Budgets are tightening. Yet the demand for authentic content has never been higher.
Ally’s approach at VCA proves you don’t need a massive team or Hollywood budgets. You need smart systems, genuine respect for your employees as creators, and the right tools to remove friction.
When you treat employees as collaborators rather than subjects, when you make participation feel like recognition rather than work, and when you remove every barrier to saying yes - authentic content follows.
This article is part of our Co-Created series, exploring how organisations build authentic content WITH employees, not just about them.
Want to watch the full conversation with Ally Brown?
Or listen to the episode here.
If you’re building an employee-generated content function in-house, this episode gives you the practical playbook.
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Co-Created Series – How to build authentic content WITH employees, not just about them. Hosted by me and Chris Murdoch, co-hosts of Employer Content Club.
This is created in partnership with Vouch (the tool Ally uses to make employee content creation frictionless).
Thanks for passing by. Hope this helps.
Chris