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73% of employees would rather listen to a corporate podcast than attend meetings
In an era of change, let's "throw a rock in the river": according to uStudio research, nearly a third of employees said they would rather mow the lawn, even in the sweltering summer heat, than read an email from their employer. In other words, even a simple internal email is more likely to take a back seat than physical work outside...
American research on the case for internal company podcasts.
Protege Market Research and uStudio surveyed more than 1,000 large corporate employees in the US last summer to better understand workplace communication and learning preferences. The results show that the trend is clear: companies that are still "dependent" on traditional channels such as email and presentations are failing to engage their employees in significant numbers.
As the research report says, emails scored particularly poorly among respondents, despite being one of the most common forms of business communication.
For example, 47% of respondents were apathetic or disliked reading emails and company newsletters to keep up to date with their company's news. In addition to disliking emails, an even greater number of employees were also reluctant to engage with company content delivered via email. Nearly 60% of respondents admitted to only skimming through emails from their employer, compared to nearly 35% who said they read company emails carefully.
And many employees simply ignore emails.
Nearly a third (32%) of workers in this age group reported that they often skip emails from employers, the highest of all age groups surveyed.
That said, email is not yet a thing of the past, as an overwhelming 71% of respondents said email was their preferred method for receiving non-urgent and routine employer information.
Interestingly, email was typically the least preferred method for employees to receive recruitment or training information, with only 4% of respondents considering email to be the best choice. For training and onboarding processes, messaging apps (48%) and conference calls (26%) were the top two choices among employees. These channels allow for a higher level of personalization and they are also ideal for training and to boost engagement.
While employees preferred meetings for training, this preference did not extend to other types of information sharing. Only 14% of respondents considered virtual meetings and conference calls as a first or second tool for obtaining company information.
indicating that real-time calls no longer provide them with relevant value. Apathy towards meetings includes the occasional phone call.
When asked whether they would like to meet with their manager or watch a video of what their manager said, 55% of employees chose the latter and declined the opportunity to meet with their boss. Ultimately, the calls are time-consuming and require employees to be present at a very specific moment, despite personal conflicts or workload.
To communicate effectively with employees, companies should develop flexible platforms, suggests uStudio.
When survey respondents were asked to rank and rank the benefits of employer-produced podcasts, flexibility was the most important benefit, with 34% of respondents agreeing that it was the biggest benefit. Media streaming, such as podcasting, gives employees the flexibility to use information on the go, unlike traditional read/write formats.
Employees appreciate being able to revisit parts they may have missed or refer back to information at any time, unlike typical in-person calls and communications.
The research also concludes that instead of the "distracting" summer mowing of the lawn, i.e. long meetings that require in-person participation, simpler podcast episodes should be used that can be listened to on the go.
Instead of using emails for training information that employees have a good chance of skimming,
Incorporating media streaming into internal communication processes is the best format to deliver the information employees are looking for, boosting employee engagement and retention.
Methodology
In July 2022, Protege Market Research conducted a survey of 1,043 employees in companies with more than 1,000 employees to better understand sentiment about workforce communication and preferences. All respondents lived in the United States and represent a sample that is closely representative of U.S. Census data in terms of age and gender identity.
Source: uStudio
