Communicating to staff

The University employs roughly 2,500 staff on a permanent basis. Add visiting lecturers and part-time staff and the number rises to over 4,000 staff. The most effective way for the University to communicate to all staff at the same time is via an internal news item on the web.

Staff news

Staff news items displayed in the public website (westminster.ac.uk/staff/news) will also show in our present intranet site, www.wmin.ac.uk. When the change over to our new intranet is made by the Summer of 2012, all staff news items will appear in the new intranet only.

How do I create a staff news item?

Submit your news item to FixIT and in the drop-down category listing, select Public website, iPhone/mobile app. or announcement.

How do I write a staff news item?

Keep it simple. A news item conveys information and fact - not opinion. Here are some tips:

Use concise and meaningful headlines:

'Flooding in the basement of 101 New Cavendish' and NOT
'Emergency, everyone clear out the basement quickly or you’ll be flooded.'

Give a meaningful summary (this will automatically appear in bold):

'At 3pm today, the University was notified that the basement of 101 New Cavendish was at risk of flooding' and NOT 'We’ve just found out there is the potential of massive flooding in the basement with lives lost.'

Provide facts/instruction in the body of the news item (this doesn’t need to be long):

'We ask all staff who park their bicycles in the basement to kindly retrieve them. We will keep you notified of any further developments' and NOT 'Please get your bikes out now to avoid damage from the flood or risk of drowning.'

End the email with a salutation and contact details:

'For further information, please contact XXX by email at xxx@westminster.ac.uk or call on ext.xxxxx' and NOT, 'We are doing the best we can to rectify the situation, please don’t contact us as we are very busy right now.'

Example news item

Title Flooding in the basement of 101 New Cavendish
Date 01/10/2011
Summary At 3pm today, the University was notified that the basement of 101 New Cavendish was at risk of flooding.
Body We ask all staff who may park their bicycles in the basement to kindly retrieve them. We will keep you notified of any further developments.
Contact For further information, please contact:
The Online team via email at web.team@westminster.ac.uk or call the team on ext. 65795


Bulk email to staff

To ensure that bulk email remains effective, the University will only use bulk email for urgent messages and critical academic/support staff communications, for example:

  • HR issues that affect all staff, such as changes to pensions, salaries and the working environment
  • operational issues, such as access to business-critical systems
  • safety alerts such as those relating to closure of buildings, and staff and student safety
  • messages from the Vice Chancellor and Vice Chancellor’s Office

If you believe your message falls into this category, please submit the message through FixIT to the Online Team, using the drop-down category Public website, iPhone/mobile app. or announcement and using 'All-staff bulk message' as the subject line.