Get your next drive-to-work podcast from Slack

Slack’s got a new podcast, launched in the spring of 2015, and it’s part self-help, part public relations. A clean website design, Radiolab-esque production elements and eloquent storytelling make this a top pick for busy listeners doing the 24/7 office hustle.

The Slack Variety Pack, as the podcast is called, bills itself generally. It’s “about work, life, and everything in between. In every episode we guarantee a glorious mix of stories on innovative ideas, modern culture, and people who have found their purpose.” That gives the producers at Pacific Continent a lot of wiggle room for story ideas, but they manage to hone in on topics that will resonate with the working listener.

“Our shorthand is that it’s This American Life meets Office Space meets Monty Python’s Flying Circus,” Pacific Continent cofounder Steve Pratt, formerly of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, told Fast Company.

Why would Slack commission the Canada-based outlet for the podcast? It’s not hard to find out: The successful communications start-up sponsored podcasts like Roman Mars’ 99% Invisible. And, as the host tells listeners at the end of the introversion-themed episode 21, they do it “because teams work best when all the individual members are fully charged and engaged. But we can’t be on all the time.” The host ends by advising the audience to not “forget to take time to recharge.”

That’s what makes this show a savvy public relations initiative. Borrowing elements from journalism in their storytelling — from a story in episode 21 about hiding your head in a cardboard box with a smartphone to relax at work to one about unplugging from phones and friends for long stretches of time — Slack taps into a deep pool of podcast listeners. (Research from Edison Research and Triton Digital suggests that roughly 27 million people — aged 12 and over — listen to podcasts each week. That figure almost doubles to 46 million at the monthly level.)

So have a listen to Slack’s humane podcast for the modern worker bee. It’s worth taking a break from the buzz to hear.