4 alternatives to hospital employee newsletters

Employee newsletters definitely had their day—like Flock of Seagulls and Captain and Tennille (and around the same time period, too). I'm always suprised, though, by how many places rely on the "newsletter" as a primary means of communicating with employees.

Just look at how the average person gets their information today. According to Pew's State of the Media report: "Eight in ten who get news on smartphones or tablets, for instance, get news on conventional computers as well. People are taking advantage, in other words, of having easier access to news throughout the day—in their pocket, on their desks and in their laps."

In fact, there is an entire generation entering the work force that wouldn't know what to do if you gave them an actual newspaper. Think Cerie on 30 Rock. And the thought of a newsletter—the newspaper's ugly cousin, once-removed—doesn't even register in their world.

Even the word "newsletter" feels completely turn-of-the-last-century. So, why not consider some newer, more efficient alternatives to an employee newsletter?

Here are a few:

• An employee blog: The value of an employee blog is that for PR/Marketing department, this is a much quicker, more flexible way of pushing out information. If your hospital has an employee recognition event, you can write it up and upload photos/video that day.
• E-newsletter: This isn't just a copy/paste job into the body of a house-wide newsletter. We're talking about a nicely designed HTML-based template that can link to the blog option. Wordpress offers plug-ins for e-newsletters that you can add to your blog.
• Intranet: This is a bigger option, but would transform the typical cluttered street kiosk-style intranet site into a more organized, functional communication tool. A lot of organizations are moving to using SharePoint for this, which isn't a terrible program. It also comes with blog options.
• Social Media: As a companion to some of the other digital options, you should all be engaging your employees on social media. Twitter, YouTube, Facebook and Flickr are solid stand-bys for all of your media needs.

I know that a lot of employees say things like, "It's nice to have something I can hold in my hands" when it comes to internal newsletters. You still can: It's called an iPad. And it will display your new employee communication modes with perfect resolution and clarity.