General Information
Friday all-staff emails
What is working
On the whole, staff are happy with the all-staff emails on a Friday afternoon. The majority of staff read the emails immediately or at least before leaving work, so it would be helpful if the emails were sent earlier in the afternoon.
The most popular topics within the emails are major projects, estates information (car parking, building closures), policy changes, health advice, and student and staff successes.
What needs improving
Some staff feel the information could be better categorised, and some would like all information in one email. Some felt the emails should include less ‘fluffy’ information, such as leisure and sport activities, and more ‘strategic’ information such as changes in the sector and information ‘to help do our jobs’.
We will send the Friday all-staff emails earlier in the afternoon. We will look at the four current categories with a view to reducing to two or even one all-staff email.
Once we have a new Staff Essentials website, we may be able to reduce the content of the Friday all-staff emails, assuming staff will have already read the news on the website throughout the week. We will monitor statistics to help in this decision.
We will also look at how the collaborative tools in Google Apps might enable special interest areas to communicate more effectively with their audiences, thereby removing some content from the website and emails.