Internal comms podcasting: why Scottish organisations are switching
Internal communications podcasting is the use of professionally produced audio or video podcast episodes to replace or supplement traditional internal communications — newsletters, all-staff emails, town halls, and intranet updates. Scottish organisations including NHS bodies, public sector agencies, and large corporates are increasingly adopting the format because it reaches employees where traditional written communications fail: on the commute, on the ward, in the field, and away from a desk.
Podcast Studio Glasgow, based at 279 Abercromby Street in Glasgow's East End, produces internal communications podcasts for Scottish organisations. If you're exploring this format for your own team, this guide covers what internal comms podcasting actually is, why it's gaining traction in Scotland specifically, and what the practical steps look like.
The problem with how most Scottish organisations communicate internally
Before getting into podcasting, it's worth being honest about the channel it's replacing.
Email is still the dominant internal communications tool. PoliteMail's 2024/2025 Internal Email Communications Benchmark Report, which analysed over 4 billion emails across more than 12 million employees, shows the average internal email open rate is around 64%. That sounds reasonable until you flip it: more than a third of employees aren't opening your all-staff email at all.
For larger organisations, the picture gets worse. Organisations sending to list sizes of 1,000 or more employees have open rates below 80% and click rates below 15%. NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde employs 40,000 people. Scottish Water employs around 4,500. For organisations at that scale, traditional broadcast email is structurally leaky — and those are the people most invested in communicating effectively with their workforce.
Employees often miss up to 50% of communications, so a "less is more" holistic approach may be the key to communications consumption and resonance.
The newsletter isn't broken because people are lazy or disengaged. It's broken because it asks employees to read at their desk, during work hours, competing with every other demand on their attention. The employee on the ward, the engineer in the field, the social worker moving between appointments — none of them are sitting at a computer waiting for an update from leadership.
That's the specific gap podcasting fills.
What internal comms podcasting actually looks like
An internal communications podcast is not a consumer podcast. It doesn't need to compete with the BBC or reach thousands of downloads. Its job is narrower and more valuable: to communicate from leadership to employees (or between teams) in a way that gets listened to.
In practice, it looks like one of these formats:
Leadership conversations. A monthly 20-minute episode where the CEO or director speaks directly and unscripted about what's happening in the organisation, why a decision was made, what the next quarter looks like. This is the format that builds trust fastest, because unedited voice conveys authenticity in a way that a polished written statement cannot.
Change communication. When an organisation is going through restructuring, a merger, a significant policy shift, or a period of uncertainty, a dedicated podcast series can carry the message consistently across a dispersed workforce. People can listen in their own time. They can replay sections. They can share with a colleague.
Expert or staff spotlight. Short episodes featuring a different team, department, or project each month. Particularly effective in NHS and public sector contexts where interdepartmental awareness is low and silos are a real operational problem.
Briefing series. A short-form (five to ten minute) regular update — equivalent to the weekly team brief but in audio form. The kind of thing that works on a commute.
All of these can be produced at Podcast Studio Glasgow in a single half-day session, with episodes edited and delivered ready to host on your internal channels.
Why this is gaining ground in Scotland now
This year, 34% of Americans aged 12 and older listened to at least one podcast each week, according to Edison Research — up from 31% in 2023 and 26% in 2022. UK figures track closely. The point is that your employees are already podcast listeners. They already know how to consume audio content. You're not asking them to learn a new behaviour; you're meeting them in one they've already adopted.
The massive rise of podcasts against mainstream media shows the hunger out there for genuine, imperfect, non-scripted connection. Leaders who show up unscripted — a little bit honest, a little bit less polished than a press release — build more trust than those who communicate through carefully managed written statements. Internal comms podcasting is a vehicle for that.
There's also a practical accessibility argument specific to Scottish organisations. Scotland's workforce is geographically dispersed in ways that few other parts of the UK are. NHS Highland covers 12,000 square miles. Scottish Water operates infrastructure from Shetland to the Borders. Local councils communicate with staff across rural areas with limited connectivity. Audio content downloads once and plays anywhere, without needing a fast connection or a screen.
NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde's Internal Communications and Employee Engagement Strategy commits to supporting all 40,000 of its employees to have a strong sense of connection to the organisation, one another, and ensuring that all staff are aligned to the organisation's purpose and values. A podcast doesn't solve all of that, but it serves something that intranet pages and team briefs struggle with: it feels like someone is actually talking to you.
The Scottish public sector case for switching
Public sector organisations in Scotland face a specific combination of pressures that makes internal comms podcasting particularly well suited to them.
Geographically dispersed workforces. As noted above, scale and geography make centralised communications difficult. A podcast episode can reach a community nurse in Skye and an administrator in Aberdeen on the same day.
Frontline workers who aren't desk-based. Just 52% of internal communicators are confident they have the right tools for reaching all employees, regardless of their location or work type, with the hybrid and frontline experience lagging behind that of desk-based staff. Healthcare workers, field engineers, social care staff — these are the people who most need to feel connected to their organisation, and they're the people least reached by email.
Trust deficits with leadership. Public sector employee surveys consistently flag communication from senior leadership as a weak area. An unedited leadership podcast episode, recorded honestly, addresses this directly. It's harder to feel disconnected from a director when you've heard them speak for twenty minutes about why they made a difficult call.
The need to reach staff through change. Restructuring, budget pressures, service redesign — Scottish public sector organisations are managing significant organisational change. The format that works best in change communication is the one that sounds human. That's audio.
What the production process looks like
Most organisations that come to Podcast Studio Glasgow for internal comms work go through the same process:
Session one: strategy and format. Before anyone records anything, we work with your communications team to agree on format, frequency, audience, and hosting. What's the show? Who presents it? Where do employees access it? These decisions take half a day and save months of confusion later.
Recording. The majority of internal comms podcasts are recorded in a single half-day session at 279 Abercromby Street. We have three purpose-built studios with broadcast-standard microphones, up to three 4K cameras, and a production team with 20 years of experience keeping conversations natural and on-track. For organisations that need to record on-site — a board meeting, a site visit, a staff event — we can bring a mobile kit.
Post-production. We edit each episode, remove any sections that don't serve the final cut, add intro and outro music, and deliver a finished MP3 and video file. Transcripts are included for accessibility.
Hosting and distribution. Private podcast hosting platforms (such as Podbean for Business or Spotify for Podcasters) allow you to publish password-protected episodes accessible only to your workforce. Employees listen on any podcast app they already use. No new software. No new login systems.
Most clients produce one or two episodes per month. A quarterly recording day covers roughly six episodes, which gives you a full series for the quarter.
The honest limitations
Internal comms podcasting isn't a complete internal communications strategy. It works alongside your existing channels, not instead of them.
Email remains the right vehicle for compliance communications, policy documents, and information that needs to be referenced or stored. A podcast episode works for connection, context, and culture — not for the formal record.
It also needs someone who can talk. Leadership podcasts only work if the leader in question is willing to be genuinely candid on record. A scripted, PR-approved episode read from a page sounds worse than a competent newsletter. The format rewards authenticity; it exposes inauthenticity.
And it requires consistent production. A single episode is a test. A regularly published series builds the listener's habit and trust. The organisations that get the most from internal comms podcasting are those that commit to a schedule and treat it as a production process, not a one-off experiment.
Getting started: what to consider first
If you're a communications lead in a Scottish organisation considering this for the first time, the practical questions to answer before anything else are:
Who presents? The answer usually starts with the CEO or a director. It works best when it's a real person with authority and something genuine to say.
What's the publishing cadence? Monthly is manageable for most organisations. Fortnightly if you have content. Weekly only if you have a dedicated production resource.
Where do employees access it? Private podcast hosting platforms handle authentication. If your organisation has a mobile communications app or an intranet, it can be embedded there.
What's the first series about? Naming the first series gives you clarity on format and tone. "Inside [Organisation Name]" or "[CEO Name] Talks" are simple, functional titles that don't overclaim.
We can answer all of these questions in a free initial conversation, which you can arrange through our contact page.
Frequently asked questions about internal comms podcasting for Scottish organisations
What is an internal communications podcast? An internal communications podcast is a privately hosted audio or video series produced for employees rather than the public. Episodes can cover leadership updates, organisational change, team spotlights, or regular briefings. Unlike consumer podcasts, they're typically distributed through private platforms accessible only to staff, and production priorities differ: authenticity and clarity matter more than download volume.
How is an internal podcast different from a public podcast? A public podcast competes for a mass audience across open platforms. An internal podcast has a fixed, known audience — your staff. It doesn't need to be findable on Spotify or Apple Podcasts. It doesn't need to grow. It needs to be listened to by the specific people inside your organisation, consistently, because it's worth listening to. The production standards and distribution approach are tailored to that entirely different goal.
How do employees access a private internal podcast? Private podcast hosting platforms allow you to publish episodes behind a password or email-domain authentication gate. Employees subscribe using their work email address and listen on any standard podcast app they already use — Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pocket Casts. Some organisations embed the player in their intranet or communications app.
How much does internal comms podcast production cost in Scotland? Costs vary depending on format, episode length, frequency, and the level of post-production required. Podcast Studio Glasgow offers both per-session pricing and ongoing retainer arrangements for organisations that want regular production support. Contact us to discuss your specific requirements, and we'll provide a clear quote.
How often should we publish internal podcast episodes? Monthly is the most sustainable cadence for most organisations, particularly those new to the format. It gives your communications team enough time to plan, record, and edit content between episodes, and gives employees enough time to develop a listening habit without being overwhelmed. Fortnightly works well for organisations with active change programmes or significant news cycles.
Can we record on-site rather than in a studio? Yes. For organisations that want to capture a board meeting, a site visit, a staff conference, or leadership conversations in their own environment, Podcast Studio Glasgow can provide mobile recording support. Studio recording generally produces better audio quality, but some content types work better in context.
What Scottish organisations are using internal podcasting? NHS Education Scotland records two podcast series at Podcast Studio Glasgow — one internal series to foster cross-departmental collaboration, and one external series for carers. Scottish Water produces the Drip Feed podcast through PSG for external audiences. Local councils, large utilities, and professional services firms are the broader early adopters in Scotland. The format is most common in organisations with geographically dispersed workforces, active change programmes, or a stated need to improve leadership communications reach. If you'd like to know whether it's the right fit for your organisation, we're happy to discuss it.
Ready to explore internal comms podcasting for your organisation?
Podcast Studio Glasgow is based at 279 Abercromby Street, Glasgow G40 2DD. We work with organisations across Scotland on corporate and internal podcast production, from strategy and format development through to recording, editing, and distribution.
Get in touch to discuss your internal communications needs →
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