Employee Newsletter: How to Improve Communication and Teamwork

Learn how to inform, motivate, and actively involve your employees in company events using an internal newsletter.

Does it make sense to have a company newsletter for your own employees? Absolutely! Take the time to connect with your team through internal communication.

Using email for company-wide messages makes sure all your employees have the latest information about what’s going on at work. Employee newsletters can also motivate employees, connect them, and strengthen the sense of community.

This article will teach you which types of content resonate with your audience and how to transform your newsletter into a valuable communication tool.

Fighting the Flood of Information with Internal Newsletters

At first, the statement might sound confusing. How can another electronic communication tool help control the flood of information in the company? In times of remote and hybrid working, especially, an internal employee newsletter offers a structured and targeted way to bundle and organize relevant information.

Although tools like Slack and Teams promote direct communication between colleagues, the newsletter plays a different role. It reliably reaches all employees. An internal newsletter goes straight to the mailbox and can be filled with specific, internal information.

“We believe that internal communication should foster and reinforce team spirit. That’s exactly why our company newsletter is so important to us. We use it to share the latest news with our team in a fun way. Everyone can get involved and help shape it. When we create content that’s truly “from us, for us,” it strengthens our team spirit more than any official email ever could. The open rate of almost 100% speaks for itself.”

Sarah Kegeler, Partner Manager at CleverReach and project lead for the internal newsletter

How can you strike the right balance between providing relevant updates and avoiding information overload? The answer lies in a clearly structured strategy that will support you in achieving your goals.

What’s the Point of Employee Newsletters?

When you think of an employee newsletter, do you picture a digital newsletter containing company news? That’s not wrong, but a well-thought-out employee newsletter can support your company in many other ways and offer significant advantages:

• Keeping your team informed:
  All team members receive relevant updates, regardless of their department or location. This prevents misunderstandings and ensures that everyone has the same level of knowledge.
• Support change processes:
  An internal newsletter that provides advance notice of planned restructuring or changes creates transparency and alleviates uncertainty for employees. This allows employees to better understand, evaluate, and contribute to changes in a positive way.
• Strengthen corporate culture:
  A regular newsletter can help build emotional loyalty and identification among employees by highlighting the company’s successes and values.
• Promote team spirit:
  In hybrid working models especially, newsletters strengthen team spirit and create a sense of community across departments and locations.
• Increase satisfaction:
  Well-informed employees feel valued, which increases their motivation, satisfaction and productivity.
• Onboard new employees:
  A structured newsletter containing important information about the company and its work processes helps new employees get started quickly and shows them appreciation right away.

What are your goals? Boost productivity and efficiency? Increase job satisfaction? Transfer your plans into a newsletter and get one step closer to your company goals.

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Internal Newsletters: the Right Content for Companies of Any Size and Number of Employees

An employee newsletter is a great way for any kind of company to communicate with its employees. But the right content and format can vary depending on the number of employees. Let’s take a look at what content makes sense for small, medium-sized and large companies:

Small Companies (10-50 Employees): Focus on Personality and Team Spirit

In small companies with manageable teams, information flows quickly. Employees usually know each other, and personal relationships tend to be the main focus of everyday work life. So, the internal newsletter should match this personal level, and the goal should be to strengthen team spirit. Possible contents are

• Project and goal updates: Depending on its size, an organization may have teams working on different projects or in different areas. But what exactly are they working on? What is their status? Open communication about progress and challenges fosters a sense of togetherness. Openness builds trust among employees and with the employer.
• Employee highlights: Who is celebrating an anniversary? Who has finished a successful project? Sharing personal topics strengthens the feeling of being valued.
• Events and team-building activities: Company outings, parties, and after-work events promote a sense of community. Use the newsletter to share the details, and send funny, atmospheric, and representative pictures afterwards to keep as a memento.
• Obtain feedback: Include a short survey about internal topics in your newsletter to show your employees that you value their opinions.

 

An internal newsletter doesn’t have to be all about technical stuff. A fun newsletter, like this one for World Dog Day, also strengthens personal communication within the team and is guaranteed to put a smile on employees’ faces.

Medium-sized Companies (50-250 Employees): Balance Between Structure and a Personal Approach

For medium-sized companies, the newsletter is a great way to keep the growing workforce in the loop. Medium-sized companies are usually structured into several teams and departments. This makes communication more complex. What is product development working on? What feedback is there from support? How does marketing present the company to the outside world? The newsletter should have topics that create a sense of transparency and are both informative and motivating:

• Cross-departmental updates: a regular insight into the activities of other departments not only creates transparency, but also promotes understanding and appreciation for the work of team members. It also helps people work together better and think outside the box.
• Training and further education: Use the newsletter to tell people about interesting training courses, workshops, and webinars. This way, you can encourage your employees to learn new skills or improve the ones they already have.
• Successes and milestones: Share moments of success and celebrate together. The newsletter is the perfect place to highlight team achievements and recognize colleagues for their efforts, whether it’s the successful completion of a project, a significant increase in sales, or particularly positive customer feedback. When you celebrate and recognize achievements, it strengthens team spirit and motivates people to keep achieving great things.
• Clarity and inspiration from managers: Words from the executive floor can really help get things into perspective and build trust, whether it’s about strategic goals, current challenges, or an inspiring look into the future. This makes a simple message into a motivational boost for the whole company.

An internal newsletter doesn’t have to go out to the whole workforce. A personalized birthday newsletter for employees is a thoughtful gesture.

Large Companies (250+ Employees): Providing Guidance and Inspiration

For big companies with lots of locations or branch networks, and international groups, the internal newsletter is often a key source of info for the workforce. Bigger companies can have a harder time getting everyone on the same page. The internal newsletter is a great way to do this.

• Top management communication: Most employees in large corporations do not know the top managers personally. This makes personalizing communications all the more important. Strategic updates, company vision, and values strengthen trust in management and convey clear direction. A regular section with insights into the management shows that top management is approachable. This makes employees feel involved and motivated to work toward a common goal.
• Department or location-based content: Large corporations with several locations or divisions often have different challenges and needs. Therefore, it makes sense to segment newsletter content according to departments, teams, or locations. This ensures that everyone receives content relevant to them.
• Values and corporate culture: The workforce is made up of a wide variety of people. Use the newsletter to share the stories of employees who contribute to the corporate culture through their diverse backgrounds, skills, and perspectives. Sharing success stories, personal milestones, and insights into extraordinary life paths promotes a positive working atmosphere and shows that your corporate values are actively lived.
• Fit for the future: Use the company newsletter to inform employees about the company’s future, new digital tools, technologies, and working methods. Include practical tips, success stories, and announcements about training courses and workshops to help keep staff up to date and allay fears of change.
• Internal job offers as motivation: Use your company newsletter to share information about new job openings and career opportunities. This shows employees that they are valued and that the company is invested in their professional growth. At the same time, this strengthens their loyalty to the company because employees who have the opportunity to advance internally view their employer as a long-term partner.

 

The holidays and the turn of the year provide the perfect opportunity for an internal newsletter. You can use it to review the past year, relive special moments, and share your initial outlook for the new year.

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Topics for Internal Company Newsletters

Your company newsletter does not have to be long, but it should maintain a regular frequency. Sometimes it can be difficult to find suitable content. We have put together some topics for your employee newsletters that can be used for most companies:

Good to know: Do you have any breaking news? Have you taken over a competitor, won an award, or broken a sales record? This is also worth a newsletter — even with just this one piece of news! If a story is important enough, it should stand alone.

With this selection, you’ll always have topics for your internal newsletter. To offer an exciting mix, it is best to draw up an editorial plan.

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How to Successfully Implement Your Internal Employee Newsletter

If you want your employee newsletter to be effective, it’s important to have a clear structure and an appealing layout, as well as the right content. Here are the most important things to consider when implementing them:

1. Layout: Uniform Design and Clear Structure

You can use the same template for your internal newsletter as for your external emails. Your company’s corporate design is key to making a professional appearance and getting noticed, which in turn strengthens your brand identity.

Sometimes, it’s a good idea to use your own design for the company newsletter. This is especially true if the company has a more relaxed atmosphere than its external communications. In this case, the internal newsletter can be a little more informal, with humor or a meme to entertain colleagues.

We like to use memes in our internal newsletter that are related to the topic. The funny images have become a regular part of the team’s internal communication.

Here are some key design elements to keep in mind:

• A structure with clear headings and visually distinct sections is easier to read.
• Visual elements such as images, icons or infographics break up the text and increase attention.
• The newsletter should be responsive, making it just as easy to read on a mobile device as on a desktop computer.

Our professional email marketing tool and our intuitive newsletter editor make it incredibly easy to get the job done.

2. Approach: Personal and Relevant

A direct, personalized approach can make it more likely that people will be willing to read. Use targeted personalization options, such as the name or specific departments. An anonymous internal newsletter without a personal touch is a definite no-go!

3. Responsibility: Who’s in Charge of the Newsletter?

To make sure the internal newsletter is published regularly and has the right content at the right time, there needs to be clear responsibility. This could be a permanent employee from internal communications, an entire department, or even a team that spans different departments.

4. Frequency and Timing: Finding the Right Balance

The frequency depends on the amount and relevance of the content. Whether it’s daily, weekly, every two weeks, or monthly, the important thing is regularity. Regularity builds trust.
Pick a time when your team is usually around and can check the newsletter whenever, like in the morning or before the weekend.

5. Additional Elements for Success

• Subject lines: Come up with concise and appealing subject lines that arouse curiosity and encourage the recipient to open the newsletter.
• Call-to-actions: Use targeted calls to action, e.g. “Join now!” or “Share job offer”.

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Conclusion: How the Company Newsletter Boosts Your Success

A regular employee newsletter is a great way to share important info with your team and strengthen motivation and teamwork.

People who feel informed and valued are more likely to identify with the company and contribute to its success. A good newsletter does just that: it inspires, connects and creates a shared sense of unity.

Make the most of this opportunity! Share your company’s main goals, celebrate important moments, and offer interesting training opportunities. Turn information into something inspiring. Your company’s internal communication tool can have a positive impact on your company’s culture. Start your internal newsletter to get this process going.

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