Podcasts don’t necessarily need a fixed format - they are your playground. But here are four ways big companies use internal podcasts to engage, inspire and inform their employees.

🧢 Leadership Podcasts

Leadership Podcasts are a widely used format in companies, big and small: Hearing directly from leaders (instead of reading an email written by the IC team). For leaders, it’s an opportunity to be accessible and personal and build empathy across departments. When done well, it feels like one-on-one time with the CEO or other members of leadership teams. Three ideas to get going:

1. Share a weekly recap
2. Give context around recent decisions
3. Record your town halls

👩‍💻 Employee Podcasts

Employee Podcasts are another popular way to use podcasts inside your company. Giving employees a voice, making them part of the brand. Especially in fast-growing companies, it’s a chance to get to know teammates better and learn from each other. An internal podcast gives employees a platform to talk about their accomplishments, motivations, goals, failures, and personal stories. Three ways to start:

1. Match two employees and a relevant topics
2. Let employees share their biggest lessons learned
3. Show the human behind the job title

📢 News Podcasts

This is the most common way companies get into internal podcasting: Making announcements and news more personal, fun, and easier to digest. Also, it’s possible to tune in on the go. Another plus? It stimulates a sense of transparency and fosters a shared understanding of what’s happening in a team, function, or the whole company. Three ideas to kick things off:

1. Let departments record a weekly team update
2. Create a company-wide news show
3. Introduce new joiners and their stories

🏄 Onboarding Podcasts

Using podcasts to onboard new hires is still relatively new but on the rise, with remote work taking over significant parts of the working world. As onboarding is the honeymoon period of any employee experience, it’s an ideal time to put a human voice to it. And let’s be honest, who reads all the stacks of papers anyway? Three examples:

1. Share the founding story and how it all started
2. Talk about the company’s vision, mission, and purpose
3. Send welcome messages to new hires

Ready to move away from highly edited messages or costly videos? Making a podcast is a relatively small and undemanding production. All you need is a decent microphone, basic knowledge of audio editing, and a distribution strategy to reach your teams securely. In the next chapter, we’re getting started!