The company had several newsletter platforms owned by the communication department for corporate and internal news. The HR Division used these channels selectively only using them for top level HR topics or for HR Division’s branding purposes. Most of the day-to-day HR news and information was written and distributed by individual HR Departments. This amounted to a large number of emails being circulated to the staff and the staff did not complete or unified understanding of the the HR Division’s offerings and support. In an effort to improve the efficiency of this process, I set up a filtering system where 80% of the non-time sensitive HR news was channeled into a monthly electronic HR newsletter called HR AND ME which I established at zero cost.
Step 1: Concept Approval. I presented a concept and sought approval from the HR Division’s Circle to set-up a HR newsletter
Step 2: Planning Workshop. I organised a planning workshop to develop the key concepts for the newsletter, including the name “HR AND ME”
Step 3: Set-up Publication Team. I brought together a publication team made up of representatives from each HR Department and enabled then with training and support for the tasks ahead.
Step 4: Newsletter Stylebook and Editorial Policies. I designed a simple newsletter template using SharePoint, wrote the stylebook and editorial policies for the newsletter.
Step 5: Setting of the Writers’ Club and Translation Team. I set-up a Writers’ Club made of aspiring reporters form the HR Division, organised regular coffee-and-cake sessions to exchange ideas and best practices and tasked them with 1-2 stories per month. I also assembled a team of translators who were province tin English-Chinese translation and vice versa. I also started training 2 editors who would take over my role as the main editor of the newsletter.
Step 6: Website and Training. After the first 3 publications, I revised the template, stylebook and the editorial policies based on feedback received, built a website for the HR Division’s communication activities and also held a series of workshops with managers, departments and the core team to consolidate the understanding and learnings.
Step 7: Sustainability. I stepped aside from the day-to-day of running an in-house newsletter and gave space for the core team to take over with the support of the Writer’s Club, translators and the editors and supported them in an advisory role.
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