Arley’s comments:

You’ve done some research and given some useful ideas about how to create an effective employee newsletter. However, there are some significant source use issues here. There’s no in-text citation, and several paragraphs have been copied and pasted directly from the source. We will go over this again in class. This issue makes it hard to use the brand voice of our book. Once this section is written in more accessible language, there will be room for other useful tips, such as what platforms to use (MailChimp, etc).

Judy’s comments:

Information included here is useful and is based on some valuable research however due to a lack of paraphrasing, to join concepts and thoughts together, it makes the information choppy and at times disjointed and difficult to follow. I would suggest thinking about your audience with regards to what information would be of value for them to know as well as what brand voice would be the best fit to engage them in the content. I would also suggest dividing the content into sections specific to newsletters and then to mass mails rather than at times combining the content. Lastly, ensure to use APA formatting for your citations.

 Introduction

An employee newsletter is a printed or electronic report that is shared with the employees only and serves as an information source for them. This information is basically about the activities of an organization. The purpose of an employee newsletter is to provide information about what’s new in the company, to increase productivity and boost the morale of the employees (Novak, 2019). It is a great way to motivate the employees to do what they think best. This informs the employees about the policies, services, social events and other news within the organization. It is important to have a good communication between the employees and the management and the other departments of an enterprise. A company’s newsletter can establish this communication to a great extent.(Vdovin, 2017).

Newsletter and Mass Media Experience in Different Organizations

According to the Alberta government, monthly newsletter links attract the participation of lower-level employees. Alberta Health has adopted Jim Kouzes and Barry Poster’s five leadership practices to promote communication and a positive work environment. Reaching the hearts of employees can influence how they behave and how they work; their career growth is also affected in a positive way (Jogal, 2015). In the year 2012, corporate employee survey, 74 percent agreed the Health All newsletters contribute to effective internal communication in the work environment. Employees are excited to take part in the monthly newsletter because they see positive results firsthand.”People stop them in the elevator or in the washroom and they say, ‘I saw your photo in Health All, I heard you are doing this thing.’ It’s kind of neat and so that is kind of nice to hear that people are breaking down the barriers in that way,” says Pang. The newsletter has also helped contribute to goodwill and generosity at the workplace (Jogal, 2015).

Objectives of Newsletters

The objective of company newsletters: Communication as short way, Employee Engagement as long way process.

A company internal newsletter aims to reach the readers composed of the employees and management to inform them of important messages and information. In order to achieve the objective, employee newsletters need to write about the activities of the various departments and all the things concerning all the members of the organization. Organizations always have their own news for their employees. In the past, they used to send them through email which caused email overload. To reduce this issue, which are now being distributed in print or online website. The newsletter informs the schedule, marketing updates, company announcements and more. (Vdovin, 2017)

Company internal newsletters can also reinforce other means of communications such as the company’s intranet or internal communication system. The newsletter provides all the updates in the company. It informs everybody on the processes that need to be done for certain requirements. The company internal newsletter can greatly promote the resources and communication tools of the company for better and effective communication. (Vdovin, 2017)

Importance of Employee Newsletters

Employee newsletter is an important internal tool used for boosting employee communication (Kaufman, 2016), employee engagement and building a more inclusive work environment (Silva, 2017). There are many reasons for organizations to consistently release employees newsletters.

1. Regular Updates: Employee newsletters are beneficial for keeping the internal staff/ employees informed about the any updates or news (Silva, 2017). The newsletters are engaging and provide adequate information and are thus more popular amongst employees (Kaufman, 2016).
2. Milestones: Employee newsletters highlight achievements of the employees and successes of the company which creates an environment of inclusion (Silva, 2017), resulting in increasing the productivity and motivation of the employees (Kaufman, 2016).
3. Employee Engagement: The content of the employee newsletters are focused on the employees (Silva, 2017) and this helps employees to know about their co-workers and their achievements which results in better engagement and building trust (Kaufman, 2016).
4. Company Culture: Employee newsletters helps foster company’s culture, reflect the mission, vision and the values of the organization (Silva, 2017). The employee newsletters also provide a chance to reinforce company’s brand voice (Smith, 2020).
5. External information: The employee newsletter also provide external updates like industry news, trends, and insights (Smith, 2020). Updating employees with their competitors achievements and failures, help them benefit and reflect on their own work and perform their duties in an excellent manner (Smith, 2020).

Tips To Create An Engaging Employee Newsletter 

The organizations should focus on making the newsletter more engaging and a source of motivation for the employee, and here are a few tips they can follow to make it appealing and useful (Vdovin, 2017).

Focus on Employees- Effort should be made to add employee related content and  highlight the aspects important to the employees like, their contribution, their personal achievements, and acknowledgement of their good work. (Vdovin, 2017).

Article Length – Newsletter’s should be easy to understand and short, but should be engaging and cover all the relevant information (Kaufman, 2016) (Vdovin, 2017).

Consistency – It is crucial to maintain consistency in the newsletter schedule, as this helps in engaging the employees. Also, consistency should be followed in the structure and arrangements of the parts of newsletter for easy accessibility of the favourite sections of the users (Kaufman, 2016) (Vdovin, 2017).

Edu-Training – The newsletters cab be made attractive by making the content 80% educational and 20% entertaining. The newsletter is a great source to introduce new learnings and can be made more entertaining by using cartoons, trivia and quotes. This helps to have a balance of information and doesn’t let the employees get bored. (Kaufman, 2016) (Vdovin, 2017). 

Executive Engagement – To boost the communication between the top executives and employees, the CEO’s can include a personal letter to the newsletter and also communicate the awards and achievements of the firm. This would increase the personal factor and the employees will feel more connected (Kaufman, 2016).

Motivational Tone– The newsletter should be a stress-buster for the employees and use a motivational tone to level up their confidence. It should focus on the positives and should be written in simple language (Vdovin, 2017). 

Creative & Interactive – The newsletter can be made creative using visuals, infographics, illustrations and art. The newsletter are no more a one-way street and thus elements like surveys and contests can be added to make it more engaging. This creates an impact on the employees and not lose the focus (Vdovin, 2017). 

Must-have Content Ideas for Email Newsletters

It is always beneficial to maintain an awareness of the company details, with employees. Email newsletters are a great medium to keep them informed about recent breakthrough awards and honors (Reynolds, 2016).

• Opinion Poll
• Quotes (may be impulsive)
• Business-related investigations or recent developments
• Statistics and data points
• Infographics
• Streamline with the company’s social channels
• The customer blog post you have written for another company or brand
• Third-party apps and tools your employees/audience would find useful
• A summation of the most popular blogs, videos, or services in a month or a year (Reynolds, 2016).

An Example:

(Campaign Monitor, 2019)

Examples of Employee Newsletter: 

(Rijn, 2021)

(Rijn, 2021)

Mass Mails

Mass Mails or Bulk Mails are emails sent to multiple recipients at a time.  Organizations use mass mails to send messages to their employees like announcing new staff members, meeting summaries, health and safety issues, event invitations, or any other important announcements that are relevant to a specific group of employees. (Kong, Zhu, and Konstan, 2021)

Advantages and Disadvantages of Using Mass Mails

The advantages of using mass mail are as follows.

• Time saviour, because it is intended for people who are already interested or subscribed. (Everlytic, 2016)
• Able to formulate messages accordingly and send different emails to different people with varied interests. (Everlytic, 2016)

The disadvantages are as follows.

• The major drawback is spam which results in employees ignoring the important messages sent by organizations. However, this issue can be addressed using reliable and best mass mail platforms which are loaded with attractive templates. (7 Best Mass Email Services, 2021)

Appropriate and Inappropriate Uses of Mass Mails

Appropriate Uses:

• Alerts the employees to situations about health and safety risks, also emergency notifications to employees.
• Provides information essential to the operation or execution of business.
• Notifies the employees about changes in governance, policy, and practice.
• Communicates important information from the top-level management. (Goldie, 2017)

Inappropriate Uses:

• Messages sent to any large internal list for the purpose of marketing or advertising of programs, research opportunities, job postings, calls for proposals, products, or events offered or sponsored by individual units. Units should use other methods of communication for these purposes, such as the events calendar or newsletters.
• Messages that are not in line with the mission of the company.
• Personal messages.
• Solicitations for contributions, charities, or participation in personal activities not related to Company purposes.
• Messages that target audiences that might appear discriminatory or may affects privacy. Also use of offensive materials.
• Attachments are not allowed. Use a link to a website or document instead. (Goldie, 2017)

Few Best Mass Mail Service Provider Platforms 

1. Mailchimp

Mailchimp is a popular mass mail platform that has great templates and has a free plan with limited access to its features which is restricted to 2000 contacts. However, it has paid subscription with plans as essential ($9.99/month with 50000 contacts), a standard plan ($14.99/month with 100000 contacts), and a premium plan ($299 with 200000+ contacts). (7 Best Mass Email Services, 2021)

2. Constant Contact

It is affordable when compared to Mailchimp and has a 90 day trial period where other platforms have 14 to 30 day trial period which can be seen as an added advantage with plans starting with a basic email plan of $25/month and an email-plus plan of $45/month to unlock all features. (7 Best Mass Email Services, 2021)

3. AWeber

AWeber provides a 30 day trial period and pricing which starts at $19/month is based on the number of subscribers and users with over 25000 subscribers have an opportunity to ask for a quote regarding the price.  It has friendly customer support service which can be seen as an advantage. (7 Best Mass Email Services, 2021)

Conclusion 

E-newsletters are an integral part of everyday life in the business environment and employees are motivated to use e-newsletters. It is therefore recommended that the organizations should put mechanisms to support and encourage employees to keep using e-newsletters. The employees should be invited to contribute to the design and the layout of the newsletters.