Do you maintain a regularly published employee newsletter?  Many companies embark upon the creation of an employee newsletter, only to realize finding good, consistent, appealing content is a challenge and in some instances, readership is less than expected.

However, employee newsletters are a great tool! A regularly published newsletter can prove immensely helpful in boosting morale and productivity. Newsletters:

• Keep employees up-to-date on key events and initiatives.
• Instruct them on new corporate plans.
• Enhance engagement among remote workers.
• Highlight employee and team achievements.
• Promote the sharing of company information.

Several of the hardwood lumber sawmill locations across the Baillie Group publish regular employee newsletters. When asked what they consider to be best practices they often offer the following insights.

Avoid jargon and strike an informal tone. Every business has its own built-in terminology, but when perusing a newsletter, people respond more favorably when content is free of such language. An informal tone is more effective. “Using ‘you’ and ‘we’ rather than ‘employee’ or ‘company’ will eliminate the impersonal tone of the newsletter,” notes Leave Date, adding that this approach “will make everyone feel like a part of a team.”

Embrace brevity and readability. Everyone’s attention span is strained these days, so articles in the employee newsletter work best when they are short (generally speaking, 300 words or less). Having white space on the page helps with readability, as do bullet points and subheads. Whatever is necessary to get your key message across is essential, as long as employees can read and absorb information in a brief amount of time.

“Every word, and by extension, every sentence needs a purpose,” notes Staffbase. “If the sentence doesn’t give the reader any real information, don’t include it.”

Address WIIFM (What’s In It for Me?) Employees are more enthusiastic about reading a company newsletter if they feel the content is customized for them. “Help them solve a problem or accomplish a task effectively,” Medium suggests, adding this example: “How the new time tracking system will save you precious minutes.”

Incorporate eye-catching design elements. Large blocks of text crowding out the page won’t persuade anyone to read your newsletter. In addition to abbreviated content, incorporate newsletter design elements that complement the written copy. These elements can include photographs, logos, charts, pie charts, etc.

Gauge the response among your employees. To boost readership and enthusiasm for an employee newsletter, seek out their reactions to the publication. Do they read the newsletter regularly? Are there specific items they’d like to see more of? Would they like to contribute short articles themselves from time to time?

For us, we have found focusing on internal communications is more important than ever. Our team wants to know more about the issues in forestry and sawmilling, all the way to selling hardwood lumber to customers domestically and internationally as well. We have found benefit in leveraging a well-crafted employee newsletter to keep employees informed and motivated.

What other employee newsletter suggestions do you have? Send them along to your representative of the Baillie Group and ask them to share with me!