Helen Wilkie
 
 
 
Employees' Poor Writing Skills Can Lead to Lost Profit
Employees' writing skills - or the lack of them -
substantially affect the bottom line in ways you may never
have considered. Here are just a few.
 
* Badly written instructions can lead to incorrect
procedures, lost time, damaged equipment, lost customers -
and lost profit.
 
* Ineffective letters, which often took too long to write
in the first place, can create a poor company image, wasted
time, bad customer or supplier relations, lost customers -
and lost profit.
 
* Interdepartmental miscommunication - often through
incomprehensible e-mail exchanges - can lead to
fragmentation of the workforce, loss of corporate loyalty,
missed collaboration and innovation opportunities, possibly
lost employees resulting in more recruitment and training
costs - and lost profit.
 
* Cold, impersonal "boilerplate" letters in response to
customers' problems or complaints can lead to loss of those
customers, bad news spread to their friends and colleagues,
loss of present and future income - and lost profit.
 
Mangled syntax can cause expensive confusion, inconvenience
or even danger. Here are just a few examples.
 
A consultant's proposal on a new benefits package for his
corporate client read, "By paying a 5% premium on wages,
all employees will be enrolled in the company insurance
program." Who was supposed to pay the 5%? According to this
sentence, the employees would pay - but in fact the company
was to pay. It should have read, "By paying a premium of 5%
of wages, the company can enroll all employees in its
insurance program." A big difference - and potentially a
deal breaker.
 
A passenger broke into the flight deck on a commercial
airplane. Subsequent investigation revealed that written
regulations said, "The doors to the flight deck must be
locked only on takeoff and landing." What exactly does that
mean? Must they be unlocked at other times? Or are they
simply permitted to be unlocked at other times?
Misinterpretation of this ambiguous message almost resulted
in disaster.
 
An airport terminal sign read, "No smoking areas
available." Does that mean there are no areas where people
may smoke? Or does it mean there are areas set aside for
non-smokers?
 
A company tried to cancel a contract, believing the
contract allowed it to do so under current conditions.  But
because of the incorrect placement of a comma in the
agreement, the other party contested the cancellation, and
successfully sued the company for $1.2 million. Expensive
comma!
 
Corporate America spends billions of dollars annually on
remedial writing programs for employees at all levels.
Organizations who invest in this training understand the
potential ROI that comes from eliminating such simple, but
expensive, writing mistakes.
 
 
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Helen Wilkie is a professional keynote speaker, workshop
leader, consultant and author, specializing in
communication at work. She offers workshops and other
learning tools to improve business writing skills. Take a
free online writing lesson when you subscribe to Helen's