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Imagine an informative article on “Compulsive Gambling” in your organization’s employee wellness newsletter. What would you rather see, an informative article with 5 to 6 questions that helps an employee begin to see that he or she has a gambling addiction, or informative article that includes all 20 quiz questions from Gamblers Anonymous so the employee with a concern really knows for sure if they have a problem? Many employee newsletters, especially 4-page newsletters with long feature articles go for the whole enchilada and over educate the reader. It’s a big mistake. And it can expose your organization to greater risk. Does that sound as though it should be just the opposite? It’s not.

Think for a minute. After writing workplace newsletters for 15 years and working with employee problems for 25 years, I have learned the the best answer is to have only 5-6 questions in this type of wellness article. But why?

The key reason is that an article, with fewer questions, regardless of the topic, has more of an ability to save your employee’s life or point the employee in the direction for solving the problem. Here’s why: A shorter, less informative article permits the author to motivate the employee to seek out more information and possibly get help for the personal problem, whatever it might be. In this case, it is compulsive gambling. The employee is hungry to read more and follow the instructions being provided by the author.

With this personal problem or any other, the risk is very great that the more information an employee has about a personal problem, the greater the likelihood he or she will not take action to get help. Instead, the employee will become educated enough (they think) to treat the problem themselves. Have you heard the catchy phrase associated with advertising that says, “be sure to leave them wanting more.”? This sums up the point.

If your employee reads too much about a personal problem, he or she will self-diagnose. When this happens, employees will pursue self-treatment, or at worst use willpower to control symptoms of the problem. However, when informative articles only provide a certain amount of information and leave the employee “wanting more” with instructions on how to get it, then it is easier to motivate that employee get help, follow the instructions to go get an assessment, and have a professional person provide motivational counseling so the person accepts proper help in addition to the diagnosis.

Hopefully, an employee assistance program is available in your organization and that it is an employee assistance program that knows your workforce well (not an 800 number on the back of your employees’ insurance card, which are not EAPs. You’ve been fooled if a managed care company told you otherwise.)

But you get the point. Long articles with lots of information do less to motivate employees to seek professional help for severe personal problems. Instead they can decrease utilization of an employee counseling program and increase behavioral exposure for your work organization. When it comes to problems like violence in the workplace, prevention could lie the way an article on anger management is written and what it motivates the employee to do.

Articles in employee newsletters are sales letters. They exist for a reason. One of those reasons is loss prevention and not to just create better employees, but to create better people. Your company employee newsletter has power. Use it to maximize the help employees receive and the good it can do for your work organization.

Daniel Feerst, MSW, LISW is author and publisher of the employee newsletter of the U.S. Congress and publisher of the workplace newsletters WorkLife Excel and FrontLine Employee newsletters, available by subscription and used by thousands of companies nationwide. LEARN MORE ABOUT NEWSLETTERS FROM WORKEXCEL.COM – FrontLine Employee and WorkLife Excel newsletters. You can reach Dan Feerst at 1-800-626-4327.

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