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CULTURE SAVING TIPS ABOUT SETTING UP A PODCAST FOR YOUR REMOTE TEAM

A great deal of trust can be built up
between podcaster and listener.
Even when the podcast host
is the CEO.

 

In today’s remote work environment, team collaboration is more important than ever before. Remote teams are often spread across different locations, time zones, and cultures, making it more challenging to find effective ways to connect, interact, and stay productive. If you are a CEO, Founder, entrepreneur, or team leader, you may have some of the following concerns with remote work that keep you up at night.

  • How can I maintain contact with my team and my coworkers?
  • When we are all in different locations, how can I retain a human connection?
  • How can I get my team more involved?
  • Will my business culture suffer as a result of being remote?
  • How do I create or maintain a positive team culture?

Leaders can make every effort to maintain contact, but when we you switch to a remote or hybrid team structure, engagement can decline. How can it be fixed? Well, here comes podcasting!

HOW DOES PODCASTING HELP MY REMOTE TEAM?

Whether you’re a remote team of two or two thousand, podcasts can be a great tool to keep your team connected and motivated. They allow team members to stay in touch and stay informed, no matter where they are. Plus, they can be used to create a sense of community and help keep everyone get on the same page.

A podcast is essentially an audio program that can be recorded, edited, and shared with an audience. It’s a great platform for remote teams because there are no geographical boundaries to contend with. All you need is an internet connection.

Podcasting is “intimate,” to put it simply. It’s one of the best simulations of a genuine conversation there is and the most scalable approach to communicate with large numbers of people while maintaining a personal touch.

This has a lot of influence in a professional, remote setting. It implies that managers can communicate with a large group of employees by speaking to them as a whole. It implies that CEOs can brief the entire organization and encourage participation. It implies that coworkers can broadcast to coworkers in a style that is quite similar to a water cooler talk, sharing knowledge, insights, or status updates.

It becomes even more potent when the just-in-time component is included. Instead of mandating that all employees use webinar software like Zoom and others.

HOW CAN PODCASTING IMPROVE REMOTE TEAM CULTURE?

Once your podcast is up and running for your remote team, you can begin to create content. Think about topics that are relevant to your team and that can help keep everyone informed and motivated.

There are several ways that podcasts can be a helpful tool for remote teams.

1. Improve Culture and Cohesiveness

Your content can be used to create a sense of culture and togetherness. Remote teams can use podcasts to stay connected to each other by discussing topics of interest, sharing stories about team members, discuss successes and challenges, talk about upcoming projects, and hearing from each other.

2. Encourage Collaboration and Brainstorming

It can also be a great way to encourage collaboration and brainstorming. Through podcasts, team members can discuss solutions to common problems and work together to find creative solutions.

3.  Provide Training for Your Team

Podcasts can also be used to provide training and educational content for remote teams. Team members can tune in to learn new skills, stay up to date on industry trends, and gain insights from industry experts.

4.  Provide Feedback and Recognition

Podcasts can also be used to provide feedback and recognition to team members. This can help to motivate and encourage team members to continue their hard work.

5.  Share Team Experiences

Finally, podcasts can be used to provide an outlet for team members to discuss their experiences as remote workers. This can help to foster a sense of appreciation and camaraderie among team members who work remotely. It can also help to give remote workers a platform to share ideas and valuable experiences that can help to inform the team’s decision-making process.

CAN I KEEP THE AUDIO PRIVATE AND INSIDE MY COMPANY?

You can, thanks to fantastic private podcasting tools! For example, you can create a podcast for your CEO update, a podcast for staff development, and a podcast for your community and make them accessible to your complete team or just specific members. To keep teams informed about information that is exclusive to them, you may, for instance, establish a “development team” podcast or a “HR Team podcast.”

HOW WOULD REMOTE TEAM MEMBERS LISTEN?

A team member may say it sounds fantastic, but when am I expected to listen? There question makes sense. Do you anticipate that your team will listen to an hour-long podcast episode that you release every week or month during their downtime? Attempting to listen to a podcast “in the background” while performing any sort of knowledge job would be completely unproductive.

Instead, consider suggesting team members include it in the workday or workweek is an alternative. Telling your employees to take brief time off each week or month to listen to the podcast.  Tell them to ‘take an hour each Friday to listen to the team podcast while you get some fresh air ’. This way it makes the podcast feel like a reward.

To start a podcast for your remote team, you’ll need to find the right hosting platform for your needs. There are a variety of options available, from free to paid. Once you’ve chosen a platform, you’ll need to create a podcast channel and upload your audio files. Contact us if you need help setting up your podcast.

Overall, podcasts can be a great tool for remote teams. They provide an opportunity to stay connected and engaged, while also providing a platform for training, feedback, and collaboration. With the right podcast, remote teams can stay connected and productive despite the challenges of remote work. So if you’re looking for a way to keep your remote team connected, a podcast could be the answer.

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7 Ways to Banish Professional Overwhelm

If you were to survey a room full of professionals, there wouldn’t be too many who would say they don’t feel overworked or overwhelmed, at least some of the time. Managing our professional and personal lives is a problem we all struggle with. At the end of the day, the only person who is going to keep you from feeling overworked and overwhelmed is you. To pull it off, you must commit to intentionally managing your time so you have a fighting chance of showing up and doing your best work or being your best self. Here are some strategies to rid professional overwhelm and get control of your life.

Play #1: Ground yourself in the present.

Schedule specific times to look ahead and make plans for the future. When you are outside of those preset times, focus on what you are doing in the moment. 

Play #2: Prioritize continuously.

Challenge your daily tasks. Don’t do things because that is what you’ve always done or because it is tradition. Do it because it helps you get closer to your most important goals. Do you need to respond to the email right this second? Do you need to schedule this meeting? Do you need to stay late tonight?  In many cases you don’t, but you do anyway simply because that’s what you’ve always done or you haven’t taken the time to brainstorm alternatives or other options. Remove as many “nice to do” tasks from your routine and you will find more time to focus on tasks that really matter.

Use the Franklin-Covey method of assigning a priority tag to each task:

A—urgent and important

B—important but not urgent

C—urgent but not important

D—not urgent or important

Categorize each task with one of these tags. At the beginning of each day, focus on your A’s first. If you get those done, move to the B’s, then the C’s.

 Play #3: Delete or delegate.

When looking at your to-do list, become comfortable with deleting or delegating tasks that you keep putting off and have no consequence if they do not get completed. Not sure what to delegate? Take a look at the delegation decision map below.

delegationdecisionmap

Play #4: Periodically place your brain on pause.

No one can or should be on 24/7. When your brain runs overtime with thoughts it gets tired just like your body does when you exercise for a long period of time. Switch your thoughts off occasionally. Take a walk. Do a mindless chore. Do some exercise. Do something where your body goes on autopilot. You’ll be surprised how productive and creative you be when you allow your brain to pause. Consider brainstorming a “pleasure list.” A pleasure list consists of activities that make you feel phenomenal when you do them. Here are a few ideas to inspire you:

  •  Catch a weekend matinee movie
  • Take a hot yoga class
  • Make a playlist of your favorite songs
  • Go the beach and read a book
  • Buy a beautiful card and stamps, then write a letter to a friend
  • Buy your favorite magazine and read it cover to cover
  • Browse travel websites and create fantasy itineraries for a future trip
  • Schedule an hour to gab and catch up with a girlfriend
  • Play afternoon catch with the dog

Play #5: Set personal and professional boundaries.

People will not respect your time unless you respect yours first. So, you need to set some boundaries for yourself. Set a time where you will stop working, a specific time where you will go to lunch or take a tea break, certain times you’ll do things with your family, certain times you won’t take calls, etc. Then, let people know those boundaries.

Play #6: Be strategic with saying yes and no.

Always consider the effect of a request on your most important goals. To ensure your yes doesn’t automatically take time away from what you need to get done, consider creating some guidelines by saying, saying, “Yes, but only if…” The same is true with a no response. You can say no but add some stipulations such as “No, but I can…” to make sure the right expectations are set and you don’t deviant from your planned course. 

Play #7: Control your distractions.

The list is endless with the amount of distractions you encounter per hour: phone calls, emails, texts, office drop-ins, etc. Schedule blocks of time when you’ll turn off the distractions. The only way to stay on schedule is to work on your own schedule–not on that of other people.

Make conscious shifts in your daily habits and choices to keep overwhelm from taking you down.

What about you? How do you deal with feelings of overwhelm? Have you tried any of these strategies yourself? Let me know in the comments section below.