How Internal Newsletters Help You To Retain Staff [Part 1]

The Caterer recently reported about staff poaching becoming a new tactic to nick employees from competitors in the run-up for the festive season. This news raises two main questions. How do businesses increase employee retention? And, can it be done without pay rises? That’s when internal communication comes in.

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Why internal communication matters

Internal communication is about creating engaged and loyal employees, which forms the basis for a long-term work relationship. It helps to build a community feeling and shows that you care about your staff the way you do about your customers. Ultimately it can also increase revenue and decrease training and recruitment costs.

Why you should implement a internal staff newsletter

It might be challenging to physically gather everyone around for a regular catch-up due to different shifts, etc. So, the easiest and most effective way to communicate with your employees is by sending out staff newsletters by email.

3 main benefits of an internal newsletter:

1) Streamlined communication

Internal communication will be key to ensuring smooth operations during the busy times ahead. Email newsletters are probably the easiest way to update everyone on what’s going on and coming up in your venue.

Compared to other communication tools like WhatsApp or Slack, you can also keep track of who has read it already and it doesn’t get lost in a feed of future messages.

Plus, you can also include your investors and advisors in your mailing list to keep them informed as well.

2) Simplified & organised onboarding process

Many businesses will hire temporary staff to help them out during the festive season. A newsletter is a quick way to get those up to speed with all the basic information they need week-to-week. 

Besides, as newsletters help build engagement, you might be able to turn your temporary workforce into fixed employees.

3) Motivational booster

A newsletter is a great way to motivate your staff by recognising all the hard work they’re doing. Let them be part of your achievements over the past months. But also motivate them for what’s coming up.

For more engagement, turn your newsletter into a two-way channel. Use it to gather feedback and ideas from your employees.

How to set up a internal staff newsletter?

The best part of a staff newsletter is that you don’t need any extra tools to get started. Take what you’ve got already to hand and use your existing customer marketing tool. This way, you get even more value out of it. 

Basically, you approach your internal newsletter the same way you would with a customer one. Mix informative and engaging content and include lots of visuals. Your staff are busy, so you need to make it worth a read.

Here’re some quick steps and tips when crafting your internal newsletter:

• Upload all your staff email addresses to a new “staff segment”
• Create a branded “staff template” with recurring sections that you can reuse
• Make it a regular thing – every fortnight or even monthly is probably enough
• Curate different content ideas (more in part 2 of this article!)
• Reduce your workload and turn it into a rotating task – get all your employees involved

Stay tuned for the second part of this article, where we’ll provide you with tons of content ideas for your next staff newsletter. 

Need a hand with setting up your first internal newsletter? Get in touch with our team.