Creative Ideas for Your Employee Newsletter

Keeping your employee newsletter fresh and engaging is more important than ever. When working remotely, staying up to date with our colleagues and engaged with the company has become increasingly difficult. Thankfully, internal company updates and important information can be easily disseminated through employee newsletters. However, not every company does so effectively, and can often end up creating more noise and confusion than clarity. Enter, Poppulo.

Poppulo's communication platform can be a communicator’s best friend, and their #1 tool in their toolbox. Organizations are seeking to produce impactful employee newsletters now more than ever. With Poppulo's user-friendly tools and features, companies can create visually appealing newsletters using custom templates and design elements. The platform also provides valuable insights through analytics, audience targeting, and real-time feedback, allowing organizations to continually refine their newsletter strategy.

7 Creative Employee Newsletter Ideas

So whether or not it's Poppulo you will be using to take you employee comms to the next level or not, here are some fun employee newsletter ideas that will help you create a successful internal newsletter.

Poppulo streamlines the content management process with its centralized system, enabling companies to efficiently store and organize all of their newsletter materials. By utilizing Poppulo, organizations have the means to create newsletters that are relevant, engaging, and effectively communicated to employees, thus fostering a stronger sense of community within the company. So now all there's left to do is come up with some employee newsletter ideas

Executives in the spotlight

Create an inclusive, transparent work environment from the top down by including a Senior Management Spotlight section where employees get to know the company's top executives.

Think about developing a series of Q&As as a short video where management answer questions about their roles, their ideas, or plans for the business, and even a non-invasive personal question. Creating video content means employees get to see the face behind the name, establishing stronger trust and transparency, and a sense of "we're in this together".

A day in the life of employee/team

Give individuals and teams an opportunity to shine with an In Profile section. In large, or even small, organizations, employees might not know exactly what certain individuals or teams do or how they contribute to the business.

A 'day in the life' interview with a team or an individual is a great way to put employees and their work in the spotlight. Make sure to include photos of the team or individual being profiled to accompany the interview, and keep the interview short – five key questions are enough.

Customer success story employee newsletters

Nothing showcases your company better than real-life stories of your products or services in action. By including customer case studies in your internal newsletter employees get a glimpse of how your products or services are delivering benefits to your customers. You may already be developing written case studies or even video case studies for your external marketing efforts, so why not include one in every issue of your internal newsletter.

Hearing real stories from real customers is a great way for employees to get an insight into the products or services they may have been involved with developing or delivering and can generate a feel-good factor about the work they're doing.

In the news

Consider adding a section that highlights how the company has made the news. Include customer or project wins, any awards or accolades that have been achieved, details on product launches that have made the news, or any other successes during the quarter.

Adding images of headlines or links to articles about the business, and even links to radio interviews or TV appearances gives employees the opportunity to see how the company is seen by the outside world. Showcasing your media mentions is also a good way to foster a sense of pride as employees are seeing your successes firsthand.

CSR corner

Critical to the success of any CSR strategy is staff involvement. It’s vital that you engage with them and encourage them to make suggestions, whether it’s for charities to support or activities that will make a difference. By highlighting projects, events, and initiatives in the company newsletter you can create a real buzz around your CSR strategy. Add in photos and a short write-up of particular events, making sure to highlight the impact they've made. This could be linked to your 'in the news' section if any specific event has made the headlines.

Photo diary

Photos of social or corporate events are a great way to get people interested in the company newsletter. People love spotting other people (and themselves) in photos. Make the photos downloadable so employees can share the images with their friends or family.

Having a photo diary section also reinforces that your company is inherently social and can be a great way for new employees to get a sense of the workplace and social life.

Employees' milestones

Recognising milestones in employees' lives can be a nice way to nurture a sense of community in the workplace. Include a section in your newsletter where you mention these landmarks: who are retired, who got a promotion, who's joined the company.

Employees have personal lives too, so it's a nice idea to include any special highlights: who's getting married or who's just had a baby.

Take a break

As the saying goes "all work and no play…". It's a good idea to add some fun things to your newsletter for employees, or a place where they can take a break. Crosswords, Sudoku, and word puzzles are fun employee newsletter ideas, but what about ramping up the creativity a little with some interactive games? Everybody loves guessing quotes from movies or identifying movies from still photos.

You could create a short video clip with snippets from well-known (or more obscure) movies and ask employees to guess the film in the comments underneath the video. Or for a less labor-intensive option, simply pop in some photos of movie scenes. This type of game could generate 'watercooler' talk and get employees interacting with each other.

Think about each section and grasp any opportunity to maximize engagement; allow sharing and comments, for example. It's also a good idea to mix things up when it comes to format by featuring text, photos, and video.

These are just a few examples of many when it comes to content ideas for the company newsletter, see more great ideas here.

Employee Newsletter Names

What’s in a name? Giving your newsletter a name helps to solidify its purpose. In basic terms, it gives employees a way to refer to the newsletter instead of simply calling it the company newsletter.

It also allows creators of the newsletter to develop the vision and content of the newsletter in line with the chosen name, for example, if a newsletter is called The Inside Track employees will learn to expect relevant company information that keeps everyone up to date with developments at the company.

General business newsletter names

• Just the Facts
• The AdvisorThe Dispatch
• The Bulletin
• The Communique
• The Final Word
• Our Voices
• Hands Up
• All Hands
• In Touch, In Tune
• The Information X Change
• The ___ Company Family Album
• On Target
• The People’s Press
• The Right Direction
• The Beacon
• The Forum
• The Lineup
• The Steering Wheel
• Roadmap to Success

Newsletter names by frequency

• The Morning Report
• The Daily Bulletin
• Dividend Daily Newsletter
• The Daily Dispatch
• The Daily Press
• The Monday Morning Quarterback
• Monday Morning Memo
• The Week Ahead
• The Friday Extra
• The Weekly Wrap
• The Quarterly Advisor
• The Monthly Monitor

Modern Newsletter names

• Resource
• Alert
• The Bulletin
• Beaver
• Tech Talk
• Cable
• Post
• The Final Word
• Challenge
• Notes
• The Beacon
• Spectator
• The Helping Hand
• Thrive
• Express
• Right Direction
• The Line
• TalkBack
• Marketing Directions
• The Talker
• The Beats

Fun newsletter content ideas

Employee of the Month

Apart from being a way to highlight behaviors and performance that reflect the company culture and help achieve its goals, employee-of-the-month programs can be a great way to create some friendly competition. Highlighting the chosen employee of the month in the internal newsletter makes it easy for coworkers to offer congratulations to the winner.

Ridiculous People in the News

A great way to add an element of light-heartedness and fun to a newsletter that can otherwise make information feel heavy and dull is to add a splash of the ridiculous. Going to Google and typing crazy news stories will offer an abundance of articles and videos to choose from that will both fill up space in the letter and give employees a great laugh.

Pets at Work

Nothing cheers people up quite as much as a cute picture of an adorable pet. Create a fun newsletter segment that allows employees the chance to share a snap of their beloved furry friend. This could be included in either a monthly or weekly basis depending on the size of your company and how many pets there are to get through.

Alongside the picture, ask employees to share some details about their pets and if they feel brave enough, request they write a fun profile from the animal’s point of view.

Contests

Everyone loves to win, it’s as simple as that. Creating a contest throughout the organization or one particular department is a great way to add some excitement in the office.

To make it more appealing, companies can get workers involved early by dropping weekly or daily hints in the space leading up to the announcement of the contest.

Behind-the-scenes

Here are some other ways to make your internal newsletter more fun and interactive for employees.

HR Internal newsletter ideas

New Hire Announcements - It’s important that employees are kept up to date with new hires at the company. Human Relations newsletters should include the names of any new employees, along with their job title and what exactly they’ll be doing at the company.

It’s good to add some personal information about the new employee too, such as their hobbies and general interests outside the office.

Company’s Achievements - What has the company achieved since the last newsletter went out? Did it reach a new sales goal? Sign with an exciting new client? Participate in a major conference? Let the organization know so they can share in the achievement.

Policy Changes - It’s essential to regularly update employees on any policy changes at the company that might affect them. Including these changes in the company newsletter for everyone to see is the perfect opportunity to get the information across without having to send out numerous emails.

Event Announcements - When letting people know of upcoming events, HR should include certain details that will help those attending feel confident and assured. This includes:

• Event dates and location
• Information about the event and background
• Dress code - will it be smart casual? Business attire?
• What to bring? Include what people should bring with them to the event.

Info From Your Leadership Team - Even if it’s just a short note from the CEO, it sends the message to employees that they want to be included with the company and they care about keeping their employees up to date.

Key Takeaway

Employee newsletters matter. Besides being a great way to share the latest company updates with employees, company newsletters can also be a creative way of sharing and strengthening the organization’s unique culture.

According to Retrospectively, Inc., employee productivity increases anywhere from 20-25% when employees feel connected to their company and its culture.

To create a company newsletter that employees look forward to receiving, companies must include content that is creative and engaging. There are many different fun and interactive options to include in an internal newsletter and it’s up to businesses to pick and choose what content works best for them and their employees.