Want to ensure your employee newsletters don’t get deleted as soon as it hits employees’ inboxes?
Then you have to engage your employees with the content!
A weekly or monthly newsletter is a great way to keep everyone updated on company happenings. Plus, a company newsletter can raise morale and broaden communication opportunities based on the content you put in it.
If you want to make sure your employees actually read the newsletter, keep it short and sweet. Skip sending novel-length newsletters. Above all, keep it equal parts focused on the employees and company news to keep them reading on.
Ready to revamp your employee newsletter?
Here are 29 exciting content ideas to use in your planning process!
Engaging Employee Newsletter Ideas to Try
No matter how fancy you get with designing a newsletter, it won’t matter to employees unless it’s full of content they want to read. That’s why it’s essential to have an equal balance of content that is employee-focused vs. company-focused.
Keep your content lively and fresh by adding in pictures of employees, team building activities, team projects, special event notices, and more. Below, you’ll find a ton of ideas that you can swap out each time you need to freshen up your content.
Happy writing!
1. Internal Job Openings
Give your employees insight to new internal job openings in your newsletter. This single idea alone is a perfect reason for them to open it every time it hits their inbox! Be sure to share as many details as possible and who they should contact if they’re interested.
2. Employee Profiles
Share a nice write-up on individual employees doing great things. Whether they’re crushing sales goals, competing in fitness competitions, or volunteering in the community, highlight staff members for what they do both inside and outside of work.
3. Favorite Healthy Recipes
Ask staffers to send in their favorite healthy recipes. From gluten-free muffins to veggie frittatas, everyone has their specialty they love to make. Plus, there’s inevitably always that recipe that is so highly praised at work potlucks that everyone asks for the recipe. Be sure to share those ones, too!
4. Picture of the Week
With smartphones, it’s easy to capture images quickly. Have employees submit pictures of anything that inspired them, made them laugh, or brought them joy over the last week. Ask for a simple caption to convey what’s going on. Or, make it interactive and ask employees to provide a caption and share the generated captions in the following week’s newsletter.
5. Contests
Everyone loves a good contest. Whether it’s company-wide or within a department, consider getting a little competitive and creating a work contest for everyone to participate in. To really entice your employees, slowly and regularly drop hints in the weeks leading up to the release of the contest’s details.
6. Upcoming Events
Give employees extra special events to look forward to when they open your employee newsletter. This can range from special retreats, holiday parties, guest speakers, etc. that would excite and inspire your staff. Put it in a simple calendar format to make it easy for them to spot each time they open your newsletter.
7. Celebrate Birthdays
Time to sing happy birthday! Offer shoutouts to those individuals celebrating birthdays at your company. This works best for smaller companies. Larger companies might consider printing a list of names instead. Make this section of your newsletter extra special by having coworkers send in a sentence or two about the person or simply ask them to offer a birthday wish to be included with the employee’s picture.
8. Honor Milestones
Company milestones are a big deal to your employees, so they should definitely be a big enough deal to feature in your newsletter! A mini profile works great here if you have the time to interview the employee. Milestones like anniversaries and promotions are exciting and should be front and center on newsletters regularly!
9. Positive Press
It’s always nice to see hard work pay off. Keep an eye and ear out for positive press about your company. Equally as important, if any of your employees have been specifically interviewed by the press or featured in an article, share it far and wide. It gives other employees the warm and fuzzies about your company. It also provides a chance for public kudos to specific team members who deserve a shoutout.
10. Recommendations
As the official newsletter writer, you may sometimes hit writer’s block. To avoid this, keep a swipe file of a variety of blogs, podcasts, books, etc. that have been recommended to you or around the company. This is a simple way to not only fill space when you can’t get the words to come, but it also provides valuable resources to employees looking to learn.
11. Team Spotlight
Chances are good that you’ve got some teams doing incredible work at your company. With a newsletter feature, you can ensure their hard work doesn’t go unrecognized. Announce exciting project kick-offs, wrap-ups, awards, and more when you do a team spotlight piece in your newsletter.
12. Surveys
For a simple way to get feedback quickly, add a link for an employee survey to each of your newsletters. Whether you want to get feedback on the onboarding process, cafeteria food, recent department training, wellness challenges, or another topic, this is the quickest way to do so. It’s convenient for you and them! Consider raffling off gift cards for surveys that are essential to get feedback on.
13. Inspirational Content
It’s nice to feel inspired. Give your employees inspirational content to look forward to each time they open your newsletter. You can include positive quotes, pictures, or stories to lift their spirits and inspire them to do their best.
14. Referral Programs
If your company has a referral bonus program, be sure to let your employees know about it! This is a great way to find new hires quickly from a talent pool you already trust. Potential bonuses are always a nice incentive to be reminded about.
15. Financial Reports
Keep your employees in the know by sharing financial reports with them. It shows the company is willing to be transparent, which often leads to more trust in leadership. Encourage participation in financial or budget meetings when it makes sense for feedback purposes.
16. Share Positive Customer Feedback
It’s nice to get helpful, positive feedback. If the customer service team recently received encouraging feedback, share it with your department teams. You can also snag screenshots of Google, Yelp, and Facebook reviews for extra positive reinforcement.
17. Employee of the Month
If your company has an employee of the month recognition program, make sure you showcase your star in your newsletter. This is an easy way to make your employee’s day and offers coworkers a chance to offer congratulations.
18. Motivational Note from CEO
For CEOs who have a little extra time, it’s nice to send off a note to employees to let them know they’re appreciated. This doesn’t need to be a weekly or even monthly feature, but every once in a while, surprise your readers with a note from the big boss.
19. Training Resources
If you have a large collection of training resources, be sure to remind employees it exists. With the day-to-day work bustle, it’s easy to forget about that file with all the digital training in it. Keep an eye out for other industry-related training opportunities (both free and paid) to notify your employees about, too.
20. Behind-the-Scenes
Workplaces are often like beehives. Everyone has their duties they’re busy with that they sometimes don’t get to socialize and meet with other workers. Give other departments an inside look at how things are run in certain departments. This can be as simple as a photo collage or as time-intensive as a recorded video interview with department heads and workers. Get creative and show the rest of the team how the company is run!
21. Industry-Related-News
Keep employees updated on happenings around your industry. Share trade publication articles, blogs, and podcast links to make it simple for them to keep up.
22. Advice Column
This is a feature you can definitely have fun with every time you publish. If you’ve got a good sense of humor and writing chops, consider creating fictitious problems and coming up with creative answers to get a laugh out of your employees. Or, take notes of common questions asked during staff meetings and have the department head address the issue in a future advice column.
23. Share Customer Case Studies
Case studies are a great way to detail a problem your company solved for a customer. Not only is it encouraging for employees to see, it also provides content they can share with other potential and current customers.
24. New Employee Highlight
Smiling new faces are always nice to see in employee newsletters. Give a warm welcome to your new employees by introducing them via newsletter. If your company is rather large, consider asking department managers to send out an email and photo of new hires to introduce them to the department.
25. Ridiculous People in the News
Give your employees a good laugh by sharing links to ridiculous news stories. This is another great filler option if you need to fill some space. Head to Google and search “crazy news stories” or “ridiculous news headlines” to find the perfect clips to share.
26. Share Links to Company Blog Posts
Even the best blogs won’t make any progress if the content doesn’t get shared. Give your company’s marketing efforts a boost when you send out blog content your employees would enjoy. This keeps them in the know of what’s going on at the company, plus provides educational benefits as well!
27. Keep Tabs on the Competition
Help your employees get a leg up by watching what the competition is doing. Whether it’s making headlines, creating new products, or doing something new on social, send updates. It may just lead to inspiring your team to create the next best thing in the spirit of competition.
28. Upcoming Online Industry Training
These days, there are a ton of free online training in a variety of formats. Help your team expand their skills by sending these out regularly. Some popular sites that they can uplevel their skills on (often for free) include Lynda, Udemy, and Teachable, to name a few. Check with industry associations and trade publications as well to see what other opportunities are available.
29. Pets at Work
If you’re a pet-friendly company, don’t forget to share pics of beloved furry friends! Feature pets in special newsletters or weekly, depending on the size of your company. Working completely remote? You can still have employees submit pet photos with fun profiles on their pets written from the pet’s point-of-view.
Create an Engaging, Fun Employee Newsletter
There you have it — a ton of ideas to create a thoughtful and valuable newsletter your employees will appreciate. As you change content ideas out, ask for feedback. You may be surprised by which sections are the most beloved sections by your audience!
A few final tips for a great newsletter:
- Make your email subject line engaging
- Keep the newsletter short and sweet
- Use templates for ease of production
- Provide valuable content to your team
One of the best parts of developing content is getting creative with what you do with it. If you normally dread putting your newsletter together, we hope the ideas above make it easier and a lot more enjoyable the next time you create it!
Looking to create a health tips specific newsletter? Check out our 65+ Health Tips for Your Employee Newsletter!
