Revealed: Staff magazines CAN be exciting

We’ve all seen them, but rarely read them. The staff magazine is plonked on our desk once every three months or so and it’s full of what the big bosses have been up to, ramming corporate figures down our throats and rarely, if ever, providing anything for the thousands of staff members that work at the heart of the business.

Well, this simply does not have to be the case. We at parsleymedia know this because we have turned a staff magazine from a number-crunching tome full of corporate jargon into something thousands of staff not only want to read, but want to feature in.

In December 2009 we were asked by Experian, the world’s leading information services provider, to revamp Insight, its magazine for staff in the UK & Ireland, Europe, the Middle East and Asia. Now, I’m not insulting anyone by saying the Insight magazine we were first presented with looked more akin to a set of report and accounts, rather than something the thousands of Experian people would want to actually read. But, within a month our team, led by editorial director Janet Tibble, transformed Insight into a magazine staff actually look forward to receiving. Indeed, Experian’s staff even compete to get a mention now we have completed the magazine’s relaunch.

And this experience has shown us something that should resonate with every human resources director or internal communications boss. There are ways you can inform your staff about the important issues, policies and programmes within your company without boring them half to death. In fact, let’s be honest, many staff magazines do not bore staff, but only because they know not to bother reading them in the first place.

Experian staff now have something completely different – a magazine they actually want to read. And why? It’s not because we took out all the information previous editions of their magazine had covered. It’s that we presented it to them in a form they enjoyed. In other words, you can still talk about staff surveys and company results, but you need to do so in a way that is appealing to the staff at the very core of your business.

Let’s face it, we live in a media world of infotainment. The BBC was established with the three Reithian Principles at its core. These were, of course, that the BBC must Inform first, Educate second and Entertain third. Well, the media simply isn’t like that anymore, not even the BBC. We must still inform and entertain, but the line between the two is now most blurred indeed, hence the term infotainment.

There are a multitude of magazines and publications out there that infotain and unless a company’s staff magazine makes it’s information entertaining, then the staff, I am afraid, simply will not read it.

That’s the key to a successful staff magazine. Experian staff know that. Do yours?