Aug. 25, 2008 at 12:54pm

Newsletters that reward as we read

Posted by Kathleen Deakins in Internal Communications, Planning and Strategy, Publications
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“People will read if the reward is large enough,” according to Ann Wylie, insightful writer and consultant. Defining the reward has been at the heart of our recent work as a member of a team planning a health care client’s new employee newsletter.

Here are some of our early ideas to make this publication a must-read:

• Employee benefit news written peer-to-peer in a column titled “What’s it mean to you and me?”
• “Heard it on the grapevine” column simply addressing real questions and concerns of employees
• Candid captioned employee photos taken as if caught by paparazzi
• A serial cartoon following real employees

We want to use storytelling to celebrate how every employee’s work has meaning. Stories are powerful.

A great example comes from author Paul Levesque who tells of a custodial worker featured in a company newsletter for coming up with a way to prevent customers from slipping in wet and snowy weather. Levesque says the grateful employee spoke up at a management meeting to say what being recognized meant to him and his children:

The kids brought the newsletter to school for show-and-tell, and the teacher posted it on the school bulletin board for a week. His kids felt like celebrities at school, he said, as if their dad had been on the cover of Time magazine. He went on to acknowledge that he'd always assumed they were somewhat ashamed of the janitorial work their father did for a living. This expression of pride from his own children, he said, was the most personally rewarding experience in his entire 30-year career with the company--and if this was the kind of thing management meant by "quality improvement," he wanted them to know he was ready to do anything he could to help.

Make it rewarding. End of story.

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