The rise of both remote work and distributed teams leave many leaders looking for effective ways to drive alignment, improve communications, and support the culture of their companies from a distance. There have been huge improvements to make remote and hybrid work better, but there are still unaddressed needs, especially around interpersonal connections. That’s one of the spots where internal podcasts can help.

Most basically - we define internal podcasts and audio as your company’s privately voiced messages and updates to the team. Maybe it’s a full narrative journey about your customers…maybe it’s a five minute weekly Monday morning message to get a dose of motivation. ALL versions of internal podcasting achieve classic internal communication goals: they’re secure, provide context, and create a human connection.

Slack, Teams, and other real-time platforms are all effective for the chats and video meetings that keep companies humming on a daily basis, but we know that there is huge value in asynchronous work in the modern workplace. Just consider the eternal question, "could this meeting have been an email?” Podcasts can help.

Could this meeting have been an email?

OK great! The team moves to asynchronous updates instead of status meetings, but the story’s not finished. Any team can still stumble courtesy of the bogeyman of internal communication: tone.

Moving to asynchronous updates and collaborative dashboards solves a lot of the basic problems. Boxes are checked; kanban boards advance…but how does your internal communication strategy make your team feel?

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“Oh sorry! My tone doesn’t always come across in email.”

How many of us have experienced some version of the above? Pretty. Much. Everyone.

Phone calls, video meetings, and face to face events all have a big leg up on written updates: the human context that we share with our body language and voice.

So, in 2024 we’re no longer asking “could this meeting have been an email;” we’re now asking “could this meeting AND this email have been a podcast?”

Podcasting is constantly lauded as one of the most intimate mediums - the host-audience connection is a strong one, and top podcasters benefit from a truly passionate fan group. When companies think about new ways to drive employee engagement, more and more organizations are adding internal podcasts to achieve a similar connection to their teams.

What are the benefits of an internal podcast?

Humanize leadership & encourage cross-team ties - It’s one thing to experience a leader as “the person at the front of the room” during town halls or all-hands meetings, but it’s a very different experience to have a 1:1 chat with the same person. There’s also a big difference between asking “what does that team even do?” vs. listening in on an interview with those team members sharing “a day in the life.” Suddenly, your leaders are real people, and you're creating empathy across teams.

Improve employee engagement - All the above helps your team feel connected to the people in your organization - great! Now what? Thanks to our Community Features, you can create discussion forums or field questions and comments for every episode. In other words, your team can ask questions, share reactions, or respond to prompts that you share in your audio - turning a monologue into an engaged dialogue.

No new software, no clunky new apps - We believe that the juice just isn’t worth the squeeze for most app solutions. If you’re forcing employees to add a new app to their phone to engage with you, you're creating an additional hurdle for yourself. Instead, we make private, secure podcast feeds where your team is already listening: Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Overcast, YouTube Music…the list goes on.

Show your trust with async content - not all topics are created equal: not equally urgent and not all the top priority. Instead of making a meeting with inevitable timezone conflicts, record the content as a podcast update and set a time for everyone to respond. You’ll demonstrate respect for your team’s schedule and trust that they can manage their own time.

More easily navigate spoken vs. written language barriers - Does your organization speak multiple languages in addition to spreading across multiple time zones? Sometimes hearing an update is simply more effective than reading an update - especially when teams are not desk-based or don’t have the norm of “living in their inbox.” Further, our partnerships with translation and dubbing services allow you to deliver tailored multilingual content.

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Ready to get started? Here are 10 successful examples (the low-hanging fruit is at the end):

1. Want to be more customer-obsessed? Interview your customers and share their stories and experiences with your product or service.
2. Working on company alignment and vision? Give the team a high-level view of the company with an original series about your company mission and values.
3. Want a more accessible and “humanized” leadership team? Give frontline employees a seat at the leadership table to listen in on executive conversations or employee-submitted Q&A.
4. Do you have partner organizations? Spokespeople or influencer marketing? Sponsored athletes? Record an interview with them, talking about the relationship with your company.
5. Looking to mix up your training program? Upgrade your learning and development (L&D) or training options by recording and adding audio courses (or have us do it for you).
6. Have a new product or go-to-market (GTM) movement? Record best-practices for the pitch and share with the team, so they can listen on their way to appointments.
7. Limited time for the CEO to welcome new hires? Record a welcome series of podcasts from leaders and groups throughout the organization, and evolve your employee onboarding.
8. Do you have a company book club? Book of the year? Turn that into an audiobook club. You can now have discounted book purchases and discussion forums to discuss questions or takeaways. Plus, with Supporting Cast, your team can listen via whatever platform they want to: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast and anywhere else you get your podcasts!
9. Do you host lunch and learns or external speakers? Record them, pop them into Supporting Cast, and now you have an evergreen, original content library for your team.
10. Not sure where to start? Take your town hall or all-hands meeting that you’re already doing; pop that recording into an mp3, add it to Supporting Cast, and now your team has a way to listen on their own time, refer back to the important messages, and submit additional comments and questions. Done and done.

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Ready to take the plunge? Read more about the Supporting Cast platform, or reach out for a conversation below. We can't wait to bring the power of audio to your organization!