The past few years have made work more asynchronous, remote, and virtually communicative. How do you build connections, culture, and community online? There’s no single answer, but we believe hearing human voices and authentic conversations are part of it.
Incorporating on-demand audio into the workplace became a valuable tool as teammates work across countries and time zones. This article shares our best tips for podcasting in business and work communication. Keep reading if you want to become a better internal creator and use audio storytelling in the workplace.
The value of podcasting for work
By nature, podcasts are conversational, personal, screen-free, and asynchronous. That makes them such a valuable tool for workplace communication. Podcasts offer many benefits to inform, inspire, engage, and connect employees. Let’s look at a few!
🏄 Podcasting for pre- and onboarding
With remote work on the rise, companies are looking into new ways to onboard new people over distance. As onboarding is the honeymoon period of any employee experience, it’s the ideal time to put a human voice to it. Channel the company’s vision, mission, and purpose into a lasting audio story. Let new hires know they are valued and supported with welcome messages from the future team. Ask new joiners to record a short introduction so other team members get to know them faster. Stimulate a sense of belonging and excitement from day one (or even before) with the founding story told by the CEO.
🧢 Podcasting for leadership communication
Leadership communication is present in all organizations. The bigger the company and the faster it grows, the harder it is to keep leadership teams close to employees. But hearing directly from a founder or CEO (like their real voice) instead of reading an email written by the IC team will boost trust, higher loyalty, and willingness to advocate for the company. So give your workforce one-on-one time with the CEO or other executive members by recording a monthly “check-in” and sharing it as an episode. Let leaders create a weekly short audio message about what’s happening in the business: the good, the bad, and the challenging. Create opportunities to make leadership more accessible and personal with an internal podcast.
🎧 Podcasting for learning & development
Training your workforce efficiently and keeping employees growing is vital for your company’s success. Use the power of listening to keep your people up to date. Flexibly integrate pieces of training into people’s everyday life with an asynchronous audio course. Being on-demand by nature, an internal learning podcast upskills your workforce at their own pace. Start small, test it in one team or department, and scale it across the whole company whenever needed. Include external thought leaders, and invite relevant speakers, but don’t forget to mix in episodes with internal peers and experts. It will spark excitement and create a feeling of belonging.
📢 Podcasting for daily or weekly company updates
Every company has its way of sharing weekly updates and news. Some do it with a newsletter, while others create looms or make a post in their employee app. With an internal news podcast, you make announcements more personal, fun, and easier to digest. Podcasts are on-demand by nature and therefore offer your employees the flexibility to listen whenever it suits them. Do it like Ash Noland for Aurora and bring everyone on the same page with company-wide audio announcements. Reach more employees with snackable episodes making it a “Friday” routine. Beat screen fatigue by offering company news as a podcast.
🏓 Podcasting for community building
Most companies have a remote-first or hybrid setup today. So keeping distributed employees connected, boosting culture over distance, and building community online became a task! Podcasts are part of the solution because they create human connections, add depth, spice up conversations, and build empathy across the organization like nothing else. Keep teams bonded even when apart with an internal podcast. Give employees a voice and interview them about their wins, failures, and important milestones. Let coworkers discuss their weirdest hobbies, newly learned skills, or favorite ice cream in a corporate-internal podcast. It will spark a sense of feeling important and enable unlikely connections at work.
How podcasts can be used across departments
Yes, podcasts are ideal for internal communication, but they also benefit almost every department in your company. Can your department use podcasts internally? Find concrete examples from teams at Salesforce, Shopify, Tata Steel, Casted, Delivery Hero, and Audi below.
💰 Internal podcasts for sales teams
Salesforce’s Snap Shot is a podcast for their sales teams: offering self-paced learning on the go. It’s crucial to educate field workers and make use of their time spent in a car.
💻 Internal podcasts for engineering teams
Shopify’s tech leadership team runs its own internal podcast Shift : unpacking technical decisions. While it’s created for all engineers, everyone in the company can tune in.
👨⚖️ Internal podcasts for DEI teams
Women of Steel is Tata Steel’s internal podcast: portraying women working in the steel industry. Interviewing underrepresented groups makes a strong diversity case.
📈 Internal podcasts for executive teams
The Casted Bodcast is Casted’s private podcast for its board of directors: hearing the CEO’s voice. Keep your board and investors on the same page with a monthly audio message.
💬 Internal podcasts for communication teams
Delivery Hero produces an employee podcast called HeroTalks : interviewing its driving heroes. It’s a great example of making employees feel part of the brand.
✨ Internal podcasts for employer branding teams
Audi started an employee podcast called Audi-Mitarbeiter-Podcast : sharing 15-minute episodes publicly. You can also use recorded employee stories to boost employer branding.
4 tips to get started for free
01 - Recording: Don’t buy equipment just yet. Simply use your smartphone, invite a popular employee who’s used to speaking, and start recording a casual conversation in the smallest room you can find.
02 - Editing: Don’t worry too much about editing . Try Apple’s preinstalled Garage Band to cut out repetitive answers or annoying ums and ahs. No time to do it yourself? Well, it’s not free, but Pager offers editing services. Please send us an email .
03 - Artwork: Don’t invest in podcast artwork upfront. Browse through Unsplash , pick and download a photo or illustration, and write your internal podcast name in your company’s type font. 1. Keep it short, sweet, and big!
04 - Hosting: Don’t spend money on hosting. Use Pager ’s free trial. We give you 14 days to launch, host, and analyze your company-internal podcast. After two weeks, you can continue running your podcast for $29 monthly .
Feeling inspired? Here are four easy ideas for your next company-internal podcast. It will make for improved communications, better culture, and higher engagement in your workplace. Log in to Pager and see how it can benefit your company and improve your team communications today.