8 Internal Communications Podcast Ideas

People have never had so many distractions. From being busy at work to the 24/7 news cycle and social media, we have to work hard to capture and keep our employees’ attention. Often, that requires us trying new formats to share company messages with our workforce. But one of our favorite internal comms mediums is podcasts. In this blog, I’ll share 10 creative—but practical—internal communications podcast ideas you can try.

What Are Internal Communications Podcasts?

Internal communications podcasts are audio-based content pieces designed to disseminate information and engage employees. 

Just as podcasts have gained popularity outside of work, they’ve also emerged as a valuable tool for internal communicators to connect with their workforce.

Podcasts serve as a channel for delivering important updates, sharing insights, conducting interviews, discussing company culture, and addressing various topics relevant to employees. By using the audio recordings, internal comms podcasts offer a convenient and engaging way to reach a wide audience, particularly those who prefer to consume information on the go—such as your frontline workers.

The versatility of internal communications podcasts allows you to experiment with different formats, such as scripted episodes, interviews, panel discussions, storytelling, and more.

Why Start an Internal Comms Podcast?

Starting a podcast might seem a little intimidating at first. But the benefits can be huge and worth the investment:

• Better engagement with complex topics. Just like with internal communications videos, a podcast can make it easier for employees to understand more complex topics. Employees are therefore more likely to consume your entire message, understand it, and take the right action as a result.
• Control over tone. For sensitive announcements (e.g. layoffs), podcasts allow you to convey a tone more clearly than text-based communications. This helps you control the narrative better and avoid any miscommunication for important messages.
• Make internal comms more fun. When we’re restricted to text, images, and PDFs, it can be hard to be creative and showcase our culture the way we want to. Internal comms podcasts give us another way to bring humor, fun, and more creative elements (e.g. storytelling) into our communications.
• Better accessibility. Employees can listen to podcasts while commuting, exercising, or performing other tasks. This flexibility ensures that your messages reach a wider audience, including those who may not have time to or can’t read your content.
• Elevate employee voices. Bringing employees and internal subject matter experts onto your podcast is a great way to elevate voices across your company. This helps your audience resonate with your podcast more, but it also is a way to showcase talent within your company.

Where to Host & Distribute Your Internal Communications Podcast

Once you’ve decided to launch an internal communications podcast, you need to determine where to host it and how to distribute it to your employees effectively. Here are some platforms to consider for hosting and various internal communications channels for distribution:

Hosting Your Podcast:

There are various podcast hosting services available to you now. Consider:

• Podbean
• SoundCloud
• Google Podcasts
• Spotify
• Apple Podcasts

These are all easy-to-use tools for uploading, managing, and distributing podcast episodes. They provide customizable podcast pages and RSS feeds.

Podcast Distribution Channels:

How you share your podcast with employees is just as important as where you upload it! Like with any important communication, you’ll want to share it on a variety of internal comms channels that make sense for your target audience. 

For instance, a podcast for your restaurant field leadership should be distributed on your mobile channels like your employee app or texting. Just posting it to your intranet won’t be accessible to your teams who work in the field and on the go.

8 Internal Communications Podcast Ideas

Like with most creative work, generating the ideas is the hardest part. These internal communications podcast ideas can either be standalone podcasts or segments on a regular show.

Remember, the key to a successful internal comms podcast is to align the content with your goals and values while keeping it engaging, informative, and relevant to your employees.

1. Employee Spotlight Podcast

This podcast idea is all about showing your employees some appreciation! 

The best way to approach an employee spotlight podcast is to interview the employee(s) being recognized in each episode. You can ask them to share their career journey and what led them to working at your company as well as what they do and enjoy about their work.

These stories don’t just feel good for the employee being spotlighted, they also show the rest of your workforce that you care about everyone’s contributions and value their hard work.

2. Leadership Insights Podcast

Most employees don’t get much face time with the leadership team. The company town hall is probably the only time most employees—especially frontline teams—get to hear from the executive team.

This internal communications podcast idea can help change that.

For each episode, invite a company leader onto the podcast for a candid conversation. It’s best to select a leader that is tied to some kind of timely company update. For example, instead of just having the CFO on for a random chat, maybe invite them on after your earnings results are announced and build that into the conversation.

Then during the episode, talk about the important update and why it matters and then ask that leader to share more about their philosophy, challenges they’ve faced, and their vision for the company. This gives employees a deeper understanding of the company’s direction and helps break down the importance of various initiatives happening around the company.

3. Behind-the-Scenes

This internal comms podcast idea is great for breaking down silos and showcasing the amazing work happening all around the company!

Many employees work within their lane and never see the bigger picture. A behind the scenes podcast is when you draw back the curtain and explore various departments, projects, processes, and even a day in the life of individual contributors.

It’s best when you take a creative journalistic approach. Instead of just interviewing people through zoom and editing the audio, make it more immersive. Go on scene and capture the sounds and feel of what you’re featuring. Explain what it’s like. And then interview people in their environment.

For example, if you’re a hospitality company with chains of restaurants, an idea for a behind the scenes might be visiting your busiest restaurant. You would arrange to go there—or have someone go on your behalf—and record the hustle and bustle of the kitchen, the dining room, and so on. You might interview a few patrons about why they come to this restaurant or love it. And then you’d interview members of the crew and have them talk about what it takes to run the busiest restaurant in your company.

4. Learning and Development Podcast

Everyone wants to feel invested in. There are so many ways you can approach developing your people—from microlearning to career growth programs. But starting a podcast is another way to provide learning opportunities to your people for a fraction of the cost.

This podcast can cover L&D in a few ways:

• Share bite-sized training on relevant topics. If you’re going through some kind of change management on software or processes, this could be a place to reinforce that training.
• Bring on experienced team members to provide mentorship and advice for developing key skills like leadership and interpersonal communication.
• Have leaders of teams come on and share how they’ve learned from their mistakes during their career.

5. Culture Chronicles

Regardless of what angle you take with your internal communications podcast, you should always strive to showcase your culture. But a culture-specific podcast dives even deeper.

For this idea, consider exploring your company culture by discussing your values, traditions, and stories that define your workplace. This can help reinforce your culture, share your why, and help new employees acclimate to their work environment.

PRO TIP: This works best if you approach it from a storytelling lens rather than just interviews. And it can be a great way to share your company’s history and vision for the future.

6. Wellness and Health Podcast 

Employee wellbeing is so important. And with people feeling more burnt out and overworked than ever, it should be something all companies are focused on.

One way to do that is by including a health and wellness component to a podcast—or making it it’s on feature led by your HR and wellness team!

Offer episodes that focus on ways to foster better physical, mental, and emotional wellbeing. This could include topics like managing stress, adopting healthy habits, and how to get the most out of the employee benefits you offer.

PRO TIP: Don’t stop there! Offer financial wellness tips and ways employees can get involved in their communities to support wellbeing from every angle.

7. Customer Stories Podcast

Nothing picks you up more than hearing how your work has made a difference. Sharing customer stories is a great way to show employees that their work matters and is having an impact on their community.

To do this, share stories directly from your customers. Team up with your customer service team to source great reviews and tap your social media team for positive interactions from customers on social.

PRO TIP: I think this works best as a segment of a broader podcast rather than a standalone.

8. Future of Work

Creating agile workforces is no easy task. But we can prepare for change better by talking more about the future of work. From changing technology (hello, AI!) to shifts in strategic direction, a future of work podcast can be a great way to ease your employees into change.

Use the podcast to discuss trends, predictions for the future, and projects on the horizon for your own company.

Amazing Podcasting Tools

If you’re overwhelmed by the idea of recording and editing your podcast, don’t worry! With podcasts being more popular than ever, there are so many tools out there that make it so easy to get started.

• Descript. Powered by AI, Descript is an amazing way to take videos and audio recordings and edit them without needing fancy video/audio editing software. Descript will transcribe your video/audio file and then you just need to edit the text and it will edit the audio for you.
• Riverside.fm. This tool is great for videos or podcasts. Riverside.fm is a virtual studio where you can invite guests for interviews and record a video. It then breaks out the recording by speaker, transcribes your content, and even lets you edit all within one platform.
• Affordable mics. Podcasts are all about the sound. But access to create microphones to record your podcasts don’t have to break the bank. You can get a decent one on Amazon or Best Buy for about $100.

About the Author

Sydney Lauro is the Demand Generation Manager for theEMPLOYEEapp. Prior to joining the team at theEMPLOYEEapp, Sydney worked in internal communications for Chipotle Mexican Grill. She uses her internal comms expertise and passion for improving communication and the employee experience to create content and share best practices to help other communications professionals.