The American workplace is changing, in a way that it might take years to fully understand. Even before the pandemic, many companies were embracing a new, decentralized approach to office culture, pushing away from the cubicle farms and fixed office settings of years past. Instead of forcing an entire workforce to commute to a shared central work space, trends were moving towards more and more people working remotely, with the office now a loose hub that employees traveled to infrequently, if at all. The COVID pandemic exponentially accelerated that trend, and we now find ourselves at a crossroads in which there is a push and pull between those companies and fields that demand a return to more traditional office settings and an employee base with no interest in going back. One of the major questions facing the remote workforce is how does a company build a community and social culture around a group of people who might never share an actual workspace? It’s a question faced by most every industry, including audio. How do those of us involved in voiceover and podcasting develop a social culture?
Remote Advantages
The professional voice recordings business is fortunate enough to be an industry where some remote working was already part of the design. We work with voiceover talent spread out all across the country, and the world, and nurturing that breadth of talent and languages is instrumental to having a robust network of available voices to handle whatever language, tone, style, and sound that a customer might be looking for.
Similarly, if your podcasting set-up is such that the only guests you can invite onto the show are those able and willing to come to your fixed studio location, that’s going to put a very real limit on the range and number of guests that you’re going to have available to you, not to mention force you into a rigid schedule versus being able to jump on a Zoom, Riverside, SquadCast, Teams, Skype, phone call and talk at your leisure.
And then there are the general advantages to working from home that apply to many industries, not just voiceover recordings. Hours are more flexible, parents have greater opportunities to be present for their children, and workers do not lose hours of their workday every single day in inescapable commutes. It’s incalculable how much employee spirit is improved by not having to slog through the same traffic jam every single day before getting down to business.
Company Voiceover Podcasting Social Culture
But how then is a company supposed to create a cohesive culture for employees who don’t share a workspace? How do you keep a bunch of disparate people feeling like they are one team with people that they don’t see every day?
It’s actually not so difficult, so long as you commit to making an effort to do so. Here at Marketing Messages, we have weekly team meetings and are always sure to dedicate time in that meeting for general discussion of our lives before getting into any work talk. We keep each other appraised of the major events of our families, and the result is that we remain bonded as a team even if we don’t share an office.
If the chemistry and sense of camaraderie is there between coworkers, they don’t have to be on top of each other in one space in order to work well together and feel united as a group to a shared purpose. Even working spread out all over the country, voiceover and podcasting social culture can exist, and strengthen the whole company.
Making Your Studio
Interested in creating your own podcast? Or are you a voiceover talent looking to set up your studio and get more professional work? Call or email us today and Marketing Messages would love to start a conversation with you.