So you’ve learned all about the benefits of a corporate podcast – from connecting your remote employees to sharing corporate impact and bolstering sales enablement – and you want in. But before you start an internal podcast for your business or organization, you might be wondering – how exactly should we structure a corporate podcast so that it delivers informative, engaging content? We’re so glad you asked. Here are a few ways that you can frame podcast episodes (or even full seasons) in order to reap the most value for your team. 

Conduct Interviews with Executives 

We all remember what it’s like to start a new job and be intimidated by the executives who hired you. Even after a few years of climbing the ranks, it can be helpful for employees to be exposed to the company’s higher-ups in a casual setting. Sharing a conversation with an executive in the form of a podcast episode or series is a great way to humanize your business’ leadership and create connections between all levels of employees in your institution. 

The executives in a corporation, whether they are the CEOs or department heads, typically also have a lot of experience with your specific organization and industry. They’ll be able to share enticing stories about how practices and standards have evolved over time, and will likely be able to impart some inspiration and encouragement by sharing their experiences across the years. This can also be a useful tool if there is a change in leadership, so that your team can hear a message from the departing executive and be introduced to whoever is assuming their position. 

While this can be a great tool to boost morale and instill a sense of meaning in your employees’ daily grind, hearing from the company’s leadership can also give your employees a deeper understanding of their priorities and values. This can have a positive impact on their work, because it means they’ll be more likely to automatically make decisions and hold perspectives that align with your company’s overall vision. 

Depending on who you decide to feature in your podcast, these episodes might also provide a valuable point of entry for employees to connect with their leadership. Communicating that your leadership cares about all levels of employees and are willing to make themselves available for questions and feedback contributes to a positive company culture and promotes employee retention and development. 

Ask the Audience – Have Conversations with Team Members

As podcast experts, we can vouch for the importance of interacting with your listeners — and with internal corporate podcasts, sometimes this can mean interviewing your audience members. Inviting employees who embody best practices and have been met with great success in your company can be a great way to instruct, entertain, and model expectations for your team. 

For new and old employees alike, featuring their peers on the podcast presents an opportunity for colleagues who might not usually interact to get to know more about one another through a casual, intimate conversation. This can aid workflow because it will expose departments to each other’s perspectives and challenges, fostering empathy and cooperation. Having employees share their stories, experiences, and tips in a podcast will humanize colleagues that would otherwise simply exist to each other as names on a screen. 

Creating connections in this way is a significant benefit of having your employees featured on the podcast. If someone hears their fellow employee on a podcast and relates to their story or has a follow-up question, that could be the jumping off point for a conversation and potential deeper friendship.

At the very least, hearing someone on a podcast helps the listeners get to know them better and creates community. This is especially critical for corporations with large, remote teams that are scattered across the country or even the globe. In these situations, it’s paramount to intentionally set systems in place for your employees to connect with each other, and a podcast is a great way to get that ball rolling. 

Branch Out into the Community

While it’s natural to want to keep most of your podcast topics local to your business operations, it’s also a great idea to expand into your industry as a whole. Who are the current thought leaders in your industry? What’s an industry trend or controversy making headlines? 

Podcasts are great tools to cover these kinds of timely, broad-strokes concepts in a meaningful, engaging way. Helping your employees understand how the work that they do impacts their community and makes a real-life difference in the world around them is essential to keeping morale up and contextualizing the hard work that they do everyday.

A podcast featuring the exciting potential in your industry and diving deep into the interesting facets of the problems your business solves gives you the opportunity to show your employees how the work they’re doing is contributing to a larger picture. What’s more motivating than that? 

If you’re interested in starting an internal corporate podcast, please reach out to us at [email protected]. We are a full-service podcast production suite eager to help you create client-facing podcasts as well as internal podcasts that will cultivate community and further your goals.