Interview Story - Accomplishment

When I was a graphic designer at St. Anthony’s Medical Center, I was in charge of laying out and shooting photos for the weekly employee newsletter. The employees didn’t find the stories interesting, the layout was out of date, and it was just a horrible design. It was basically some black and white pages stapled together. So the readership was extremely low and it would always end up in the trash with hundreds left over at the end of each week.

I saw an opportunity to make the newsletter better and increase readership so employees could get better communication. I spoke about this with my supervisor who seemed excited about the change.

My supervisor, the editor, and I had a three-day retreat away from the office to go over a plan for new story ideas and a redesigned layout. We weren’t sure what to do and what employees wanted, so I suggested facilitating focus groups containing a mix of employees like nurses, managers, and employees from support departments to find out. We asked each group a total of 25 questions and recorded them on paper. This gave us a better understanding of the kind of communication employees wanted.

Afterward, my supervisor and I went over the answers and researched our options. We found that employees wanted more “people stories” and those “feel good” stories that would give you all the warm fuzzies inside instead of things like the weekly menu at the cafeteria. Based on these types of stories, I was able to give the magazine a personality by giving it a total redesign and the editor had a better understanding of what kinds of stories to write.

I worked with outside print vendors on quotes and to identify the type of paper we could print on that would fit our budget. After choosing a printer we got to work on new stories and new photography. I shot more photos of events and of smiling employees celebrating patients going home after an illness or a new department opening up.

The first issue came out. Instead of a bunch of pages stapled together, we had a full-color magazine. In the end, employees loved the new stories and the format. Because it was in color and in a magazine format, it had a longer shelf-life. Employees were taking the magazine home to read instead of tossing them in trash cans.

We did follow-up research about three months later and saw that readership went up 72%. The hospital administration was excited by the improved engagement. The newsletter now both built camaraderie among the staff and gave a helpful channel to communicate updates and reminders.