20 creative topics for your next employee newsletter
Coming up with creative newsletter content and relevant topics can be a pretty daunting task.
It’d be a different story if it all worked like the magical internal communications dream it’s supposed to: if your leadership team came to you with pre-penned letters, if your company calendar was always updated, if each department head gave you a little paragraph to share about that big thing they’re working on.
Instead, it typically comes down to this: one person, in charge of the company newsletter because they volunteered (or were volun-told, hah), is left scrambling for information from a ton of disparate sources, desperate for design help, and still has to come up with a bunch of creative, engaging ideas for the company newsletter.
We’re here to help (in more ways than one)!
If you’re still working with an old-school system and are just looking for a ton of topics to choose from, we’ve compiled a list of 20 of our favorite employee newsletter topics below.
If you’re already a current Workshop customer, you can also use all the below ideas for compiling your own company newsletter!
1.) Events
We know: this one might be obvious, but think outside the box a bit! You don’t just have to include work-specific events like all-hands meetings or open enrollment; you can also highlight great things that are happening locally or virtually, as well. (If you have multiple offices, something like Workshop can make it easy for you to share specific events for separate locations.) It’s a neat way to highlight community initiatives and/or training and development opportunities for your staff, as well.
2.) Celebrations
Sure, there’s the standard work anniversaries and birthdays, but celebrate your company’s progress and success, as well! These celebrations can be big or small, and can give the spotlight to a department or an individual that might not get a ton of recognition.
3.) Lessons learned
Don’t shy away from failure; encourage a transparent company culture by having someone in the company share something that hasn’t gone well, and unpack the lessons learned. It reframes failure as an opportunity to grow and shows that the company is willing and open to have those discussions.
4.) Tidbits of company history
One of the best-performing topics in any employee newsletter is company history. The nostalgia is wonderful for both long-term employees and new hires, and gives your company a real sense of depth and understanding. You can approach this from so many directions: talk about the founding days, unpack a longstanding inside joke, share a milestone from way back when, etc.
5.) Marketing content
It’s always a smart practice to include a piece of marketing content and encourage employees to share it externally. Find a blog post or video that’s gotten a lot of attention, and highlight it for the rest of the company!
6.) Advice from internal experts
Elevate experts within your company by having them write little pieces of advice to include in the company newsletter. They don’t have to be experts on work-related topics, either; a great recipe, a quick DIY, or a few sentences on leadership are all engaging examples that your employees are sure to love.
7.) Open positions within the company
One thing we hear really often is that employees want more visibility into what positions are currently open within the organization. The company newsletter is a great way to highlight those and/or remind employees about any referral program you might have in place!
8.) Notes from leadership
This is another place where we often see employees craving more communication. Bring in a department head or exec as a ‘guest editor’ and have them share their current thoughts on a new initiative within the company, something they’ve learned the last few weeks, or even just a podcast or book they’d recommend. These little highlights will do wonders for making the company feel just a bit more connected to the leadership team. 🙂
9.) A show of support
If you know your employees are struggling, don’t shove it under the rug and ignore it. Your company newsletter is an excellent place to make a public display of support, whether that’s for a marginalized group, a team that’s tackling a hard problem, or a local community organization or charity that could use your assistance.
10.) Customer feedback
This is our all-time favorite, and it is truly astonishing how few companies include it in their newsletters. Find a recent review, NPS survey response, or customer interaction to highlight in your company newsletter as often as you can. It’s the best way to make sure that everyone sees the impact they’re having on the end user. We get a lot of amazing content from our support team!
11.) Random holidays
Sometimes this can feel like a “lazy” way to create content, but I have to be honest: it almost always works and performs really well. This is the site the whole world uses for random national/international holidays. (Another idea? Create your own!)
12.) The most engaging post from your intranet or instant messaging app
No need to reinvent the wheel, right!? Take a peek through your company intranet or your Slack channels and see what kinds of content your team is naturally engaging with already, then re-highlight that in the company newsletter.
13.) Wellness tips & resources
This can be a tricky one, but done well, it can be so appreciated by your employees. Look for health and wellness resources or well-researched advice to share. Just make sure it doesn’t feel like you’re ‘shaming’ them into certain behaviors, and keep it relevant to work.
Here are a few more specific topics that have done well:
- the benefits of taking a lunch at work
- wellness/health benefits they might be underutilizing
- how to position your monitor correctly for your eyes/neck
14.) Revenue updates
Sometimes we can get so in the weeds of the day-to-day that we forget to pause and just let employees know the answer to one super important question: how is the company doing? In most cases, that means revenue. If you don’t have a dashboard where your team can see the answer to this question at any time, be sure to showcase the company’s monthly or quarterly revenue.
15.) Company or executive press coverage
One key aspect of great company cultures is that their employees are proud to work there, and press coverage can be an excellent way to help cultivate that. Share any recent local or national news coverage of your company, your CEO’s podcast interviews, etc. with the rest of the organization! You’ll find that a bunch of your employees will share those links on their social media accounts, as well. 🙂
16.) Benefits highlights
It can be hard for one employee to keep track of all of the different benefits your company might offer, so highlight one in your newsletter to 1.) remind employees who use it that they have it and 2.) to increase adoption for it among those who aren’t using it.
17.) What’s coming up
Don’t have much news for this week’s newsletter? That’s alright! Keep employees informed of the future of the company, and share anything exciting that’s coming up. Goals, plans, product launches, events…all of these things will help keep employees looking forward and excited for what’s to come.
18.) Locally-relevant information
Meet employees where they are by highlighting important information or exciting updates from within their local communities. You can cover all kinds of topics here: weather (& related safety information), new restaurants or businesses opening nearby, events, etc.
This is challenging when you’re working with multiple offices, but if you use something like Workshop for your company newsletter, it’s really easy to segment information and share it among the right set of employees.
19.) Career development ideas
Somewhere on your employee list, we guarantee there’s at least one individual that’s hungry to grow. Highlight any programs you have that might help with career development, and/or share advice from leaders within the company on how someone can grow and get promoted within the organization.
20.) Software tips & tricks
Your company is using all kinds of software to get work done well, but I promise you they aren’t all using that software well. Do a bit of research on some of the technology your employees are using, and share shortcuts or tips and tricks to get the most out of them. We love to share great Slack hacks, tips for using the company intranet, Mac keyboard shortcuts, and more.
If you’re still stumped for more creative ideas, we have 20+ more engaging ideas for newsletter content here!
Next steps:
Download our Internal Comms Editorial Calendar: This sample internal comms editorial calendar will help you organize your content and messaging so you can communicate with your employees and drive engagement. It’s simple, streamlined, and totally customizable for your company’s needs.
