Community communication keeps members of the Aalto community informed about the university's activities, practices, services, guidelines, people, campus, events, and other important matters. In addition to conveying information, community communication also involves interaction and building a sense of community, and when functioning well, it positively impacts work motivation, the work atmosphere, and well-being.

Instructions: How to reach Aaltonians

When you have a matter that personnel should know about, do this:

1. Create an internal news on the aalto.fi website. Before publishing:
   Make sure the news is visible to target groups by adding metadata and classifications.
   Offer readers related content by adding links with liftups components at the end of the news.
2. Share the news on internal social media, Aalto Social.
3. If you need more visibility for the topic, you can propose highlighting the news on the For personnel page or in the Personnel newsletter – contact Aalto Communications: communications@aalto.fi.
4. If your matter also concerns students, create a news in the Student Guide.
5. If you are organizing an event, add it to the event calendar.More information from LES communications
6. You can submit current information for approval to be displayed on the campus info screens in various buildings.
   Information screens and media walls on campus
    

Communication channels for personnel 

Below are listed channels to follow in order to stay informed about matters in your own work community. There are also channel-specific introductions on where and how we communicate internally about general topics, as well as how information for all Aaltonians is shared through our internal communication channels.

When planning to publish content, it is worthwhile to consider the unique characteristics and requirements of each channel—such as images and visual elements, the style of the text, the length of the text, and the language used.

Aalto.fi

The Aalto.fi website is the university's main communication channel and contains a wealth of information about the university's operations, guidelines, contact information, as well as current news and events.

For personnel page

The page provides the employee with up-to-date information and services as well as tools to make your work easier. Remember to log in with your Aalto account! Internal contents are only visible to logged-in users and can be distinguished from the lock image.

For personnel page

Personnel newsletter

The Personnel newsletter is sent bi-weekly to all employees. The newsletter guides you to read more about aalto.fi contents. 

Personnel newsletter

Aalto Social - internal social media

Aalto Social supports open and active discussion and community engagement. The platform can be found on Teams or at social.aalto.fi. Aalto Social is intended for interaction across the entire university: anyone can create a community around a topic of their choice, and all communities are always open to everyone. Discuss, comment, follow.

Aalto Social

Community events

All Aaltonians are welcome to attend community events four times a year to hear about common issues and celebrate together:

• This is Aalto in March sums up the previous year’s achievements.
• Meet our board in September will explore changes in the operating environment together with Aalto's Board.

Email

E-mail distributions to entire staff are only used in crisis or other exceptional situations, and in significant matters affecting work, such as instructions for hybrid work.

Other social media channels

Aalto's social media channels (Facebook, Instagram, Linkedin, Bluesky, YouTube) are not primarily intended for internal communication, but they share information about research, studying, and working at Aalto as well as important topics to the Aalto University. As for social media channels, you can contact communication services.

Social media recommendations and guidelines

Other gatherings of the whole community

• On May Day and right before the beginning of the holiday season, we meet up to celebrate together or around some other topical events.
• Other community events include the opening ceremony of the academic year Aalto Day One.
• In Installation Talks we celebrate tenured professors with their engaging presentations. Events are open to general public as well.
• We organise yearly approximately 250 public defences open to general public as well.
• The university's internal and public events are listed in the Events hub

For team and project communication: Teams and other collaboration platforms

For team and project communication: As a general guideline, the Microsoft Teams platform is used for team and project work, where you can share and work on documents together, as well as between the team and the project group. You can use Teams chat to reach colleagues around the whole Aalto University. 

Teams and Zoom are commonly used platforms to organise remote and hybrid meetings. We have also other tools in the supported toolbox, such as Google Workspace.

On this page are listed the collaboration tools available at Aalto University:

Learn more about collaboration tools

Communication to students

The main channel for student communication is the Student Guide. Study-related information is also distributed to students in a period letter sent by the Learning Services.    

More information about learning services