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The company newsletter is one of those things that I find both fascinating and hilarious about the faceless organization.
These newsletters are printed on glossy, full colour paper and then distributed to over a thousand employees. Boxes and boxes are brought in, and then people have to bundle them up and deliver them to the various departments.
A lot of work goes into the production and distribution of this monthly/seasonal newsletter. In all honesty I can never remember how often these things come out because I myself could not care less about the content.
For starters, in the wonderful age of email - I learn everything I need to know about what pertains to my job WEEKS before it ends up in the newsletters. My inbox is clogged with random operational memos that have next to nothing to do with me in the first place, but I'm on a mailing list or in an email grouping that makes me privy to certain info, so blah, blah, blah, I know.
Secondly - I am not a fan of propaganda. The company newsletter is a lot of rah-rah for the hard work we do, but as someone who is either directly involved in the hard work, or knows someone who is, you understand that the office newsletter version of events is so sugar coated it's like it happened at a different, more efficient office untouched by the bizarre politics that plague the faceless corporation.
Finally - the reason I get the office newsletter is, obviously, because I am at work. So do I really need to spend company time doing the little brain teasers someone (who gets paid a lot more than me, I promise) probably spent a lot of company time digging up on the internet? Is this the best thing I could be doing?
Probably not.
One final thing about the company newsletter. No joke, one of the issues was about our company's commitment to the environment. It outlined our recycling efforts and all the other junk science related policies we've taken on since caring about the planet became trendy. Yet we continue to put out a newsletter, on actually paper - when we could just post it online for all to see. When you walk through the cubicle hell that is the faceless organization, the garbage cans are lined with the office newsletter no one wants to/has time to read.
If there's one thing I do love, it's blatant hypocrisy.
In the age of being effective and efficient - translation: not wasting company time, I'm not sure why we continue to devote energy and resources to a physical newsletter. I mean, really - do you care that so and so has worked here for thirty years and managed not to die from a paper cut or some such thing? Do you need to know about a fire drill that happened at a different office if there was no fire and everyone did what they were supposed to do? Probably not.
This is the electronic age - put it on the web so when I am looking at it, I at least look like I'm working and not wasting time sitting around reading a magazine. Everyone will feel better if we just keep fooling each other about this whole work thing anyway...
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Comments
07.24.09
I used to write for the company newsletter at my old company. Some of the information wasn't so great, other information was pretty good.
What I found is that the newsletter was a good tool for bringing the corporate community together. The focus wasn't on who just got promoted, or who was retiring next week, but about what charities co-workers were taking part in. I think that kind of stuff is cool because it gives peers a chance to rally behind one another.
07.24.09
I think that management forgets that simply presenting information is not the same as 'communication.
Communication is presenting infromation that is relevant to the listener. Anything else is noise.
I actually find my company's printed material interesting. However, the constant "employee communications" emails are almost always instantly deleted. 90% of them are not relevant to me. As for the remaining 10%, I will get the information through other means.
07.26.09
I think newsletters suck. But Boomers like them and that's why we still have them. When the Boomers retire, so will the newsletters.
07.27.09
I completely agree. A printed, company newsletter is an outdated method of communication and, as far as I can tell, simply a piece of propaganda for the organization.
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