How to build a profitable podcast.
Here are the top 7 tips for implementing podcasts into your HR processes to improve employee onboarding with corporate podcasts.
Onboarding refers to the process of welcoming new employees to a business. A positive onboarding experience is essential for businesses that want to enhance productivity and retain top talent. Using corporate podcasts is one of the best ways to facilitate the process, especially for remote hires. They are an engaging medium that you can use for all five Cs of onboarding: culture, connection, confidence, clarification, and compliance. Here are seven tips for using corporate podcasts in onboarding.
The authentic tone and feel of audio can help to replace the traditional way of onboarding recruits. Using corporate podcasts for onboarding is particularly effective in a company with many remote employees.
Corporate podcasts can come in many different formats. You need to decide which format is the appropriate one to use for various stages of the onboarding process. If each podcast is in the right format, has a clear goal, and helps a recruit to build a connection, it will promote a better onboarding process. Some podcast formats you can use are:
Interviews with current employees are useful for welcoming recruits. You could even interview the whole team the recruit will be working with. Featuring your employees in podcasts not only helps recruits to feel more connected but can help the current employees to feel more appreciated and valued too.
This type of format is like overhearing a chat between two friends. The interviewee and guest usually chat about a specific topic. Recruits may find it interesting to listen to chats about how the business grew and its future goals.
The company's CEO could record a series and informally chat about the company and its culture. This would help recruits to feel the CEO is approachable.
Podcasts can offer basic technical training for new hires, especially when working remotely for large companies. These types of podcasts can contain answers to frequently asked technical questions. There can be problems of a minor nature that employees are easily able to fix themselves. One of the questions they often ask may relate to how to update OS or software when working on corporate hardware or how to fix other minor technical issues.
Role plays can help recruits to understand more about their specific job roles in a relaxed and stress-free way. Stories can entertain them and help them to feel more connected to the company.
A podcast hosting platform should have all the built-in capabilities you need to deliver internal corporate podcasts to employees securely and conveniently. As a company, you can decide who has access to private internal podcasts.
Businesses can use bCast free podcast hosting for their corporate podcasts. Some of the benefits of using podcasts in the learning process include the fact that they can hold attention for longer and they’re convenient and easy to access. They are far more engaging than having to wade through a pile of documents.
Providing recruits with links to valuable podcast episodes on day one can help them immediately feel more at home.
A pre-onboarding podcast helps recruits prepare for their first day. When they know more about what to expect, it can considerably reduce their anxiety. You could send a link to it as soon as they accept the job offer. What type of welcoming podcasts could you make?
Interviews with employees where they introduce themselves, explain what they love about their jobs, and give some insight into their daily routines can be very helpful. Showcasing the humans who work for the business can help to foster a connection and prevent recruits from feeling as though they have joined a faceless company.
You could also allow new employees to record a short introduction about where they’re from, what they were doing before joining the company, and something they are interested in outside of work.
Building an audio library of training resources enables you to use it for years to come. Various types of training podcasts are useful when training recruits. The number of information recruits has to retain is often overwhelming, and short audio clips can make it less intimidating. A repository of audio clips can cover every area of training.
Using corporate podcasts for role-specific training has many benefits and is a cost-effective way to handle training. They don’t need to pay a person to teach a recruit one-on-one.
Recruits can listen to specific role training podcasts from wherever they are and whenever they have the time. They can also easily refer back to one if necessary, as they are always available. Learning is more self-directed for recruits when they can pick and choose the podcasts they feel they need to listen to.
Some companies are designating role buddies who help onboard new hires, especially remote ones. For example, a role buddy can find out what a new employee already knows and direct them to specific training podcasts to help them learn what they don’t know. Some tips when creating specific role training podcasts include:
A strong onboarding process will have its focus on people rather than on documents and paperwork. When the experience is personalized, it will confirm the opinion of recruits that they have made the right decision to join a company.
If they feel the onboarding process suits their specific needs, they will be more comfortable and feel empowered. They won’t feel as though they are just going through the motions to get to where they want to be.
Using podcasts can help them to see where they fit into the larger company picture and how their contribution will count. This can increase their productivity and make them more willing to learn.
New hires may find it far preferable to listen to podcasts that help them get up to speed than having to constantly bug their co-workers. The podcasts can explain processes in simple ways with examples that allow them to understand various aspects of their job and company process as a whole. This is especially helpful when it comes to remote contractors' onboarding, for example, developers. They may require more time to become fully engaged in the company life, get to know the team, and learn about the internal coding process.
Unless you track your podcast results, you will have no idea whether your podcasts are meeting your onboarding goals. Podcast analytics means you can access information about which episodes are most popular and which are watched the least. You can find out whether listeners are dropping off at a certain stage or skipping certain segments.
When you understand what resonates most with recruits, you can create more appealing content. It is also helpful to ask for feedback about onboarding podcasts, and you can do this in the form of a survey. This can help you to make sure your onboarding podcasts are accomplishing their purpose. If not, the information that you collected will help you to decide what to do to fix them.
Using corporate podcasts for onboarding is a change in the way of doing things that are gaining traction. They can facilitate remote hiring to engage a new generation of remote employees and make them feel more intimately connected with the business. Using audio to augment the initial steps for new hires creates a rich experience for them. It immediately makes them feel more engaged and that they are part of the business. They are likely to become productive more quickly and be loyal to the company, which will improve ROI.
About the author:
Anna Lysiuk is a part of the MacPaw marketing team. She loves to write about marketing, HR processes, and remote work solutions.
