10 Types of Employee Newsletter Templates with Designs

Employee newsletters are a cornerstone of effective internal communication. They enable you to keep your teams informed, connected, and feeling valued. But let’s be honest, consistently creating engaging newsletters can feel like a never-ending uphill battle.

You face time constraints, the pressure to keep information accurate and fresh, and the challenge of ensuring your content resonates with a diverse workforce. This post cuts through the struggle, offering ideas for 10 pre-designed employee newsletter templates to simplify the process. Come and discover a variety of formats and content strategies to inspire you, transforming newsletter creation from a chore to a breeze.

What Are Employee Newsletters and Why Are They Important?

An employee newsletter is a strategic communication tool used to connect and engage your workforce. It is an important tool because it provides a centralized platform for companies to communicate important updates, news, and information to their employees. This helps to increase engagement, improve transparency, and enhance employee satisfaction. By keeping employees informed and connected, the employee newsletter can also help to boost morale, productivity, and overall employee experience.

Axios HQ’s 2024 State of Internal Communications considers “the data you need to retain employees, improve alignment, win on social issues, spend smarter, save time and boost revenue.” Their focus is finding the “right data” to improve employee engagement, ensure stronger teamwork and collaboration, improve productivity and retention, and grow profits. 

The action plan they recommend to increase retention includes teams, ad hoc emails, the use of a company intranet, and internal newsletters. But, because internal communications need to be accessible to employees, you need to identify the best ways to share information. According to their research, both staff and leaders rank newsletter and recurring updates very highly. When asked which were the primary ways they choose to share critical internal communications, 22% of staff members and 24% of business leaders opted for newsletters. 

By creating a consistent and engaging newsletter experience, you can bridge the gap between leadership and employees, fostering a more transparent and connected work environment. So, let’s look at the value of the employee newsletter in more detail. 

Improve Communication and Transparency

An employee newsletter produced regularly bridges the communication gap within an organization. Newsletters allow companies to share important news, updates, and announcements with the entire workforce in a centralized and timely manner. This fosters transparency and keeps employees informed about company goals, initiatives, and achievements. Employee newsletters also provide a central hub for company information, reducing reliance on internal emails or fragmented communication channels.

An employee newsletter will also keep employees informed about company initiatives, leadership messages, strategic direction, and key achievements.

Enhance Employee Engagement

A well-crafted employee newsletter can do much more than just inform employees. By including engaging content like employee spotlights, company culture stories, or even fun facts, newsletters can create a sense of community and belonging. This can lead to a more engaged workforce that feels connected to the company and its purpose.

By showcasing successful client projects, positive customer testimonials, and employee achievements an organization can inspire pride.

Increase Motivation and Recognition

Employee recognition is extremely important and it should never be underestimated. An employee newsletter offers a platform to recognize and celebrate employee achievements. Spotlighting outstanding work, team successes, or even birthdays and anniversaries, can boost morale and motivate employees to strive for excellence.

Boost Employer Branding and Talent Attraction

Newsletters showcasing company culture, employee stories, and a positive work environment can act as a powerful employer branding tool. This can result in attracting top talent that identifies with the company’s values and appreciates its communication style.

They foster a sense of community, which also promotes company culture. This, together with employee recognition programs, and team-building activities, will cultivate a sense of belonging and shared purpose.

Reduce Information Overload & Streamlined Communication

A well-produced employee newsletter can help reduce information overload from various channels like emails or internal chats. Created regularly, they will provide a single source of truth for important company updates, eliminating confusion and ensuring everyone is on the same page.

Stimulate Knowledge Sharing and Collaboration

Newsletters can be used to share best practices, success stories from different departments, or even internal training resources. This can foster knowledge-sharing and collaboration between teams, leading to a more productive and innovative work environment. An employee newsletter is also the best place to promote employee knowledge and skills by sharing industry updates, training opportunities, and resources to empower employees with continuous learning and professional development.

What are Employee Newsletter Templates? 

Employee newsletter templates are pre-made layouts for email newsletters. Internal newsletter templates enable communicators to produce engaging and informative internal newsletters that capture your employees’ attention and boost overall engagement. They save time because the template is your starting point. 

This is because a template for an employee newsletter is basically a skeleton or framework. While there are some elements that remain constant — a company logo and contact information for example — most of it needs to be filled with new content for every new issue. 

The key elements of internal newsletter templates typically include:

• Header: Company logo, newsletter title, and possibly navigation elements.
• Hero image: A large banner image that grabs attention.
• Content body: Where the main content of the newsletter, like articles, announcements, or employee spotlights, are displayed.
• Footer: Contains contact information, unsubscribe options, and social media links.

Employee newsletter templates commonly incorporate design elements. These enhance the template and make the newsletter visually appealing. Designs might include:

• Colors: A chosen color palette that reflects the company brand or the theme of the newsletter. 
• Fonts: Specific typefaces that are easy to read and align with the brand.
• Images and graphics: Photos, illustrations, icons, or infographics that complement the content and add visual interest.
• Buttons and call-to-action (CTA) elements: Visually appealing buttons or graphics that encourage readers to click on links or take specific actions.

While the templates you can download or purchase off the Internet generally contain these basic design elements, you’ll need to customize them to suit your needs. Or you may prefer to create your own template.    

10 Best Employee Newsletter Templates with Designs

We have created 10 employee newsletter template designs offering a variety of formats and content strategies to inspire you. From celebrating achievements to fostering a sense of community, these templates provide a springboard to craft newsletters that resonate with your unique workforce.

Each of these includes a one-liner highlighting the focus of your newsletter and a brief description of what the template includes. 

#1 The Big Picture Newsletter Template

Keep your team informed about company-wide initiatives and celebrate achievements with a clear, concise message from leadership.

• Focus: Company-wide announcements, strategic updates, and leadership messages.
• Template: A banner headline with a clear, concise message from the CEO. Include visuals that represent the company’s goals or mission. Briefly highlight departmental achievements that contribute to the bigger picture.

#2 The Employee Spotlight Newsletter Template

Recognize and celebrate employee contributions that exemplify your company values and inspire others.

• Focus: Employee achievements, team milestones, promotions, and recognitions.
• Template: Feature a section dedicated to employee accomplishments. Include photos, short bios, and details about what made their contribution stand out.

#3 The Welcome Wagon Newsletter Template

Give a warm welcome to new hires, introduce them to the company culture, and help them feel like part of the team.

• Focus: Onboarding new hires, company culture introduction, team member profiles.
• Template: A warm welcome message to new employees. Include a company culture section with photos and blurbs from team members about their roles and favorite things about working at the company.

#4 The Knowledge Hub Newsletter Template

Share industry updates, training opportunities, and resources to empower your employees to continuously learn and grow.

• Focus: Industry updates, training opportunities, internal knowledge sharing, professional development resources.
• Template: Curate a section with relevant industry news snippets or upcoming training sessions. Feature an “Employee Spotlight” where someone shares their expertise on a specific topic.

#5 The Fun Zone Newsletter Template

Boost employee morale and engagement with team-building activities, social events, and recognition of personal milestones.

• Focus: Employee engagement, team-building activities, social events, company milestones (birthdays, anniversaries).
• Template: Include a calendar of upcoming social events or team-building activities. Add a section for employee birthdays and work anniversaries. Share photos from past events to keep the mood light.

#6 The Eco-Corner Newsletter Template

Promote sustainability initiatives and eco-friendly practices, and showcase employee volunteer efforts that give back to the community.

• Focus: Sustainability initiatives, environmental awareness, employee volunteer opportunities.
• Template: Highlight the company’s green efforts and upcoming sustainability projects. Showcase employee volunteer work and its impact on the community.

#7 The Wellbeing Digest Newsletter Template

Provide resources and information to support employee wellness, mental health, and work-life balance.

• Focus: Employee wellness programs, mental health resources, healthy lifestyle tips, work-life balance.
• Template: Provide information on company wellness programs or health benefits. Share articles or tips on maintaining a healthy work-life balance. Include resources for mental health support. 

#8 The Client Celebration Newsletter Template

Showcase successful client projects and positive testimonials to boost employee morale and pride in their work.

• Focus: Client wins, project successes, positive customer testimonials.
• Template: Showcase successful client projects and the teams behind them. Include positive client testimonials to boost employee morale.

#9 The Poll Position Newsletter Template

Encourage employee engagement with surveys and feedback opportunities, and use their input to shape company initiatives.

• Focus: Surveys to engage employees, feedback opportunities, company updates based on employee input.
• Template: Share the results of recent employee surveys and how the company is addressing feedback. Include a new poll on a relevant company topic to keep employees engaged.

#10 The Global Gram Newsletter Template

For companies with a global presence, share news and stories from international branches to foster a sense of community and cultural awareness.

• Focus: company news from international branches, employee stories from different locations.
• Template: Feature stories and achievements from employees in different branches. Include cultural insights or traditions from various locations to foster a sense of global community.

What to Consider When Designing an Employee Newsletter

Designing effective employee newsletters requires careful planning and consideration of various factors:

• Content focus: Identify the primary objectives of your newsletter. Will it focus on company-wide announcements, departmental achievements, employee recognition, or a combination of these? There will be specific areas in your template where this content will go. 
• Target audience: It’s important to tailor content and design to resonate with the specific needs and interests of different employee groups. Consider factors like department, location, and level of seniority. 
• Design aesthetics: Develop a visually appealing newsletter that aligns with your company branding. Use clear formatting, high-quality images, and concise language for easy readability.
• Frequency and delivery: Determine the optimal frequency for disseminating newsletters (weekly, bi-weekly, monthly). Choose a consistent delivery schedule and platform (email, internal communication app) to ensure maximum reach.
• Call to action: Incorporate clear calls to action within your newsletter to encourage employee participation in surveys, training sessions, or company events.

By thoughtfully addressing these aspects, you can create engaging templates that effectively communicate with your workforce.

How Much Time Does it Take to Design An Employee Newsletter?

The time it takes to design an employee newsletter can vary greatly depending on several factors:

• Complexity of design: A simple newsletter with pre-designed templates and minimal customization might take 30 minutes to 1 hour to assemble.
• Content creation: If you need to write original content, gather information from different departments, or conduct interviews, expect to spend several hours on content creation alone.
• Design skills and tools: If you’re using a user-friendly email marketing platform with drag-and-drop functionality, the design process can be relatively quick. However, if you’re building the newsletter from scratch with complex design elements, it could take a skilled designer 2-4 hours or more.
• Number of versions: Anticipate some back-and-forth for revisions and approvals. Depending on the complexity of the design and the number of stakeholders involved, this could add 30 minutes to 2 hours to the total time. 

Pain Points Associated with Creating Internal Newsletter Templates

While employee newsletters offer significant benefits, creating and maintaining them can present challenges. These include:

• Time constraints: Finding the time to consistently research, develop, and design content can be demanding, especially for smaller teams.
• Error prevention: Ensuring accuracy of information, consistency in formatting, and maintaining a clean design throughout the newsletter creation process requires vigilance.
• Sourcing content for an employee newsletter: Identifying compelling and relevant content that resonates with a diverse employee base can be a hurdle.
• Targeting the right audience: Tailoring content to specific demographics and avoiding generic information requires thoughtful segmentation and content strategy.
• Sending to the right channels: Choosing the most effective channels (email, internal communication platform) to reach employees with varying levels of technical access can be complex. 

You Don’t Need Pre-Made Employee Newsletter Templates

Cerkl has a better way. 

Cerkl Broadcast Email Blasts (Eblasts) are the ideal vehicle for delivering employee newsletters. You can build them easily using drag-and-drop elements, pre-made templates, and even by using an HTML upload. 

This means that you can use our existing templates to build simple newsletters, or you can create your own templates. You can also save an Eblast that you have created and save that as a template. The other alternative is to design and build your own newsletters on a completely different platform like InDesign, and then distribute them using Eblasts.

Robert Lanckton, Cerkl Customer Advocate and Education Specialist, tells more in the Cerkl Help Desk article about Blast Templates. 

The Cerkl Broadcast team is also available to help you take your employee newsletter templates to new heights. 

Once you have your newsletter ready to send, the power of AI will manage the process. You’ll be able to segment the process, sending it to the right people at the right time. You will also benefit from detailed insights and analytics, so you ascertain how successful your employee newsletters are. 

What’s Next?

While templates can make your task of creating engaging, informative employee newsletters simpler, there are a lot of basic principles to get your head around. But you can relax. We’ve created Employee Newsletters: A Comprehensive Guide for Internal Communicators just for you! You can download it FREE for a limited time only. 

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