How can you use internal newsletters to keep employees engaged?

No one is standing by breathlessly awaiting an employee newsletter. Many don't want to read. What employees do want is to hear the latest information from their manager about what's going on and how they matter. By putting together a regular brief digest of what leaders can discuss with their teams, you can build engagement more meaningfully than via a company newsletter.

Newsletters can be helpful for employee engagement. Here are a few ideas on how to make it interesting to the targeted audience. 1). Share professional development tips that really work in the culture of the organizations. 2) Tell short but interesting stories about the employees. 3) Have a guest column that gives employees an opportunity to have a voice. Make it easy for them to contribute by sharing a template. 4) Each week include the answer to something most people are talking about to increase readership.

In my view - newer generations need to feel connected to their place of employment more that older ones. They don't feel as obligated to "suck it up" and just do the work like us baby boomers :) They want to feel part of the mission. Engagement then is critical to motivating a workforce... newsletters are one tool or way of aligning efforts and enthusiasm with mission.

I see an organizational newsletter as an opportunity for team building, knowledge transfer, celebrating and learning. Highlighting team members' accomplishments provides them with a sense of team and contribution. Sharing upcoming activities and events via the newsletter means accurate information will be socialized among your entire team's client engagement. Including knowledge transfer with each internal newsletter from SME from internal teams not only provide a learning opportunity but will increase efficiency in the future by all team members knowing when they are looking for a specific topic or SME they know exactly where to go for answers.

Having worked at a highly heterogeneous organisation, employee engagement is essential to foster inter-departmental collaboration, create transparency across the group and promote individual department's initiatives.

I loved managing internal newsletters to unite all employees as a single team and inspire them to move in the same direction. Winning newsletters include: - A clear overview of strategic priorities, their current status and stakeholder benefits of managing change - Reasons why employees should care about a business priority, contrasting the before-and-after states and answering "what's in it for me?" - Compelling visuals to simplify and enliven concepts - Resources to help employees learn more about an initiative (project lead name, URL) It was rewarding to have CEOs gush over the internal newsletters -- but it was even better when employees praised them as useful tools that helped them feel informed and like they belong.

Many might think the traditional newsletter is a thing of the past, when it’s an incredible value tool in your communications toolbox - and dare I say, this includes printing (so old school!). This is particularly true if your employee cohort are those who are “on the floor”, with limited access to your intranet in the go, or part of a geographically dispersed organisation. You need to find ways to bring all the relevant information they need in one place that comes to them. Even better - is when it then encourages them to seek further information out on your more dynamic channels.

We invested heavily in our internal comms tools and used tech to help us create a visually informative and engaging newsletter which we could then track to see how it performed and adapt accordingly. Creating the right type of newsletter is a collaborative effort so it’s important to engage all of your stakeholders into the process to create content that really matters, moreover newsletters facilitate communication between employees and leadership. They encourage open dialogue, feedback, and collaboration, ensuring that employees feel heard and involved in the shaping of business. They contribute to a vibrant workplace culture where employees feel valued and connected to the organisation's goals and values.

It is a good snapshot for employees to know what is happening around the organisation. For example, when we share that a musician is visiting the campus for masterclasses and concerts, colleagues from other departments are interested in participating in public events. For a tiny department with only 4 staff, this is a massive promotion and audience development opportunity with a strong, educated segment.

The purpose of an internal newsletter is to inform, include, and inspire employees. You want to inform your teams about what’s happening in and outside of the organization; include their voices, stories, and accomplishments wherever possible; and inspire them to live the company’s values and reach its ultimate goals and objectives.

Feature non-management level employees instead of keeping the focus on senior management and above. Highlight how they contribute to the organization and the role they play, and encourage others to send submissions for future feature considerations. Many people enjoy being recognized. This has the added benefit of allowing them to engage with and better understand the roles their colleagues play and by extension, their business.

Have a strong editor who keeps the focus on what your colleagues want to hear, not just what your organisation wants to tell them! Whilst this should be pretty obvious, like many internal comms channels and platforms, newsletters can quickly become full of 'corporate' information that isn't relevant or engaging for most employees. So pick out the people stories, the stories your people will want to tell their friends and families, and show why the stories you need to include are relevant to them.

Employee Newsletters - when done right - are powerful tool for brand engagement. Your employees are your first and crucial brand ambassadors, and a newsletter can ensure that they're not only up-to-date on what's happening in your organisation, but are able to share this with those around them. This creates grass-roots, word-of-mouth engagement that is incredibly powerful. The newsletter is also a powerful tool for recognition. Beyond 'Employee of the month,' it's an opportunity to share volunteer initiative, team engagement, diversity & inclusion and so much more; thus adding to a positive company culture and long term employee retention.

Include content that (1) further strengthens employee pride in being part of a winning team and (2) helps employees do their jobs - be relevant and useful. And if it's a choice between educating or entertaining employees, always opt for entertaining.

It depends on your strategy and overall objectives is as to what to include. Ours served as a conduit for providing employees with timely and pertinent information related to their roles, business resources such as HR updates and tools and the company's mission. We delivered updates on organisational goals, business updates, helpful resources for things such as mental health, DE&I updates and the celebration of successes and we would include articles which were positive and uplifting. Comms teams can use newsletters to help employees connect their work to the broader objectives of the company, fostering a stronger sense of purpose.

The best design is probably one the reader doesn't notice. There are no limits to the directions you could go on this. Bottom line, pick one, keep it simple and stick with it. The last thing you want to do is tinker with the design often enough that it distracts from the content. Keep it consistent so your audience is comfortable and has their expectations met with each open. Great example newsletters are Axios, the Morning from NYTimes, the Morning Brew, and plenty more.

A drag-and-drop newsletter template makes it really easy to add or subtract sections as you see fit, and will save you a TON of time each month since you won’t ever have to start from scratch. The design elements will vary from company to company, but here are a few newsletter email design tips you can consider: - Use your brand colors effectively throughout the email (remember, it should feel like it’s coming from your company, even if it’s for internal eyes only!) - Add in GIFs to create movement and more dynamic images. - Make it human and make it unique to you. Employee or customer photos, even if they aren’t the best quality, always perform really well!

Sure, you can always measure the standard open and click-through rates, but that’s often not enough. The key here is to make sure you’re using internal newsletter software like Workshop that is better able to manage your distribution lists and track open rates. With the right tool, not only can you see open rates down to an employee level, but you can also really drill into and segment that data (by role, department, employee, or location).

A surefire way to measure the impact of your newsletter - skip a month and see if anyone notices. Does anyone reach out to ask when the next newsletter is being published? Also keep track of the requests that come your way - are employees sending in story ideas?

One measurement that I've embraced is asking employees to rank communications by value in our yearly communications audit. If something is sinking into the "no value" zone, it's time to radically rethink it. Inversely, if something has "incredible value", I look for ways to improve the value and increase the audience size. If this content is truly resonating, how can we increase our audience and the impact of the value we are delivering?

The best way to measure is to actually invest in the right tool and there are lots on the markets so it's important to choose the one that best suits your needs and is easy to use so that you can have multiple people contributing if necessary. We would check our weekly reports to see what did and didn't work and by using the insights we were able to adapt our strategy to create content that really mattered and people found useful. We also measured our open rates and engagement on a quarterly basis to report back to the business and for comms teams this is an excellent way to illustrate the value and importance of internal comms.

Never forget that for some people, a story in the newsletter is a very big deal. It may be the first time anyone's showcased their work. And know that they're going to share it with family and friends. So always give your best effort in telling their stories.

Employee engagement is the lifeblood of a thriving workplace. Internal newsletters, when crafted thoughtfully, can be your secret sauce. Beyond conveying information, they can be a canvas for inspiration, a stage for recognition, and a forum for collaboration. In the digital age, rich content and interactive features can transform mundane updates into captivating stories. Visuals, polls, and discussions can turn passive readers into active participants. Remember, it's not just about broadcasting; it's about fostering a sense of belonging, where every employee feels heard and valued. So, let your internal newsletter be the symphony that harmonizes your workforce.

In the good old days we sent out the newsletter once a month or once a week. Consider doing daily outreach with the audience. If you use a channel like Teams and send out info in bite sized chunks, it becomes part of a the daily routine, and is easy to digest and respond to. It's also "hot off the press" info rather than week old stale info that nobody cares about. Twitter (X) has made us into news junkies (even if we don't read the news anymore!)