Is Your Employee Newsletter Management Propaganda?
It should not be. If it is an effective newsletter, it will serve the needs of readers (employees) as much as it serves the needs of the publisher (management). Let me explain how to ensure it serves employees as well as management, by reviewing four key points I make in A Manager's Guide to Newsletters: Communicating for Results. Objectives and reader responses: First, state your objectives in terms of reader responses. This forces you to focus on your readers, and what they're likely or not likely to do. Nothing brings objectives down to earth more quickly than the reality of implementation. Now you may have self-serving objectives, such as increasing employee productivity, which is fine. But, once you state that objective in terms of reader responses, you are forced to see that objective in new terms. For example, let's say you want to increase productivity. The desired reader response might be that employees will participate in lunch hour learning sessions. Now, you have to plan and write articles that give readers some good reasons to attend. Reader goals: To find those reasons, you'll have to identify readers' goals, and which of them they can achieve through your organization. Chances are your organization can offer a stable income, but probably not the chance to become fabulously wealthy. Nor would you expect most organizations to be part of spiritual or family goals. So the second key point is to focus on the goals that your organization can help readers attain, and leave the rest alone. Content in which you share an interest: Third, select content that serves both your objectives and readers' goals, and I emphasize the word 'both.' If there isn't something that interests both management and employees in an article, then it doesn't belong in your newsletter. You both must have something to gain or something to lose in choosing subjects for coverage. Presentation style: Fourth, the style of presentation should be appropriate for the characteristics readers bring to the newsletter. They don't pick up a newsletter with their minds in the blank slate position. Instead, they bring to it emotions, degrees of involvement, and ranges of consistency with your attitudes and beliefs. You need to do at least some basic profiling, to identify these characteristics. For example, if morale is poor, you need to address the reasons and the solutions. It makes absolutely no sense to pretend everyone's happy when the opposite is true. Of course, not every organization covers these four issues. Take a look at many employee newsletters and you'll see something much different. These newsletters have objectives that serve only management, and not management and employees both. You'll see what amounts to a brochure, a sales pitch that does nothing to help employees advance toward or achieve their goals. And, if there's nothing there for employees, why would they read it? And, if they don't read the newsletter, how will it help management achieve its objectives? It won't, of course, and the employee, having found nothing of relevance to her interests in the newsletter, will assume it is management propaganda. In summary, an effective employee newsletter addresses the needs of both the publisher (management) and readers (employees). And, ironically, a newsletter can only achieve its self-serving objectives by serving the interests of readers, too. Robert F. Abbott is the author of A Manager's Guide to Newsletters: Communicating for Results, which explains how to create effective newsletters, newsletters that get the desired responses. Learn how to start a newsletter, with real-life examples, at:
http://www.managersguide.com/articles.htm
Related News
|
 |
|
|
RELATED ARTICLES
Encouraging Behavior That Gets Results
You're the boss, and you have every reason to feel good about your organization.
Turnover is Not a Problem
"Ha!" you say. "For someone to make a statement like that, they obviously haven't worked in the real world and certainly have never had to run a company." Well, let me assure you. In my past I've not only run companies, but spent many years in one of the most notorious industries for turnover ? the restaurant industry.
Give Yourself a Boss Day Gift, Part 2: Are You the Position or the Person?
Are you the position or the person?
The Power in Praising People
One of the keys to success is to have successful relationships. We are not islands and we don't get to the top by ourselves. And one of the key ways to grow successful in our relationships is to be "life-giving" people to others. Every person we meet, we either give life to or take life from. You know what I mean. There are people who encourage you and when you are done being with them you feel built up. Then there are others who you feel torn down by. Successful people are people who have mastered the art of building others up.
Conflict at 36,000 ft
This was supposed to be one of those sleepy flights that leaves late, crosses two
time zones, and arrives at 11:00 p.m. But it wasn't.
Management Procedures Usability ? How to Improve
Are your people consistently following your procedures? Each year, organizations lose thousands of dollars through common mistakes and lapses in usability. But what does that mean for business owners and executives?
How to Leverage Your Strengths for Peak Performance
Ask almost any business leader how to most effectively develop people and build teamwork and you'll hear, "tap into employees' strengths." Yet when it comes to their own careers, many managers still focus the majority of their personal development efforts on shoring up areas of weakness.
Follow Up: It Makes A Difference
A while back the headlight switch on our minivan quit working, so early one Saturday morning we took it to the neighborhood repair shop that has been mailing postcards to us the past three years. They said it would take 90 minutes to check things out.
The Supervisors 14 Essential Truths For Communicating With Direct Reports
One amazing, but sadly true, fact of today's advances in communication tools is that we really don't communicate much better than in the past.
A Renewed View of the Modern Business Culture
Life can sometimes be unexciting if not refreshed by the will to create according to one's own conscience and freedom. Often, the power of passion fuses into unexciting or appealing activities. One sometimes expects to be free from the demands, the macro-strings of the society, so that one could do what one wishes. In many different ways, one could say that freedom of this nature may bring about towering creativity though it can also breed chaos. How to find a method that could encourage a pleasing freedom as well as bring about the desirable creativity is very important for the society in general and for business in particular. In short, a balance needs to be sought and erected. But the balance, as I will show, is the one that encourages conceptual creativity to soaring heights while it limits dispositions or practice in line with the prevailing macro- or micro-culture.
Inventory Management 101
Inventory management may seem complicated to some, but if one truly thinks about what the words "inventory management" mean, it is a simple concept. Inventory is basically a list of goods and materials that are held by a business and are available in stock. Inventory management is the process of keeping track of inventory, and having the delicate balance of supply and demand firmly mastered. When having inventory, a company does not ever want to have too much of a product, nor does it want to have not enough of that product to meet demand. Inventory management helps to ensure that a proper inventory is maintained at all times.
Employee Retention: Five Leadership Fundamentals
Are your management practices on the right track? Retaining your valued or high performing employees must be a strategic issue for your company. Throwing more money at your workers is not the answer and can become very costly. The more effective way to retain top talent is to address their important needs.
Inspiring Loyalty and Contentment in Your Workforce
One of the first things I look at when I take over a new department or division is the attitudes of the managers and /or supervisors.
Best Practices Plan: Dissemination of a Great Idea
Good news spreads quickly
Five Ways to Influence Change in Others
Because of my work as a consultant, trainer and coach I deal with change and people's reactions to it all the time. When a Client decides to work with us, they are recognizing that some sort of change is needed. After all, if they want more effective teams, better Customer Service, higher creativity, more effective training, or more effective leadership in their organizations, something has to become different than it is currently. Change must occur.
The 10 Realities of Change
I've seen several articles that begin with lines like "the only constant today is change." I assert that change that is constant can't really be called change. It's simply a new reality. It's time that we accept that things simply don't stay the same and speed to change is the new reality of business. Like any other new reality it requires new responses.
Behavioral Interview Questions You Can Use Monday Morning
If past behavior is the best way to determine future behavior then behavioral interviewing is a requirement for anyone serious about hiring top talent. This skill isn't something that should be taken lightly, but everyone's got to start somewhere. Keep in mind that you're looking for specific examples rather than vague descriptions. A good communicator can dance around the question and sound very convincing if you don't insist that they give specifics. Here are a few questions that I have found to predict the future behavior of some of the most critical personality traits.
Selecting a Business Broker or Intermediary to Help You Sell Your Business
As crazy as it seems, some people spend more time choosing a coffee machine than they do selecting the business broker or intermediary that will sell their business. This can be a fatal mistake that can cost time, money, and sometimes the ability to sell the business at all.
Overcoming the Document Tracking Challenge
"Where did it go? It was here yesterday. Wait. Here it is. But it looks a lot like the draft I just sent my team members yesterday. I don't remember when this change was made. Who made this change? Why is document tracking so difficult?"
Gift Giving for Business a Major Headache
Corporate gifting is a big headache for most business owners; how much to spend, who to spend the money on, where to get the gifts, what to get and how to gauge the effect of that giving in terms of benefits for the company are all important questions. When a company decides to give gifts it needs to be planned out as part of doing business, not just a last minute impulse. The cost of gifting should be built in to the cost of your product and used when evaluating your break even point.
|