A guest post from Continuing Studies facilitator, Fiona Prince.
Do you get cold sweats before you hit the send key for a company-wide email?
Do you struggle to find the right words to express your
ideas in business reports?
Do you make it to the first round of job competitions, but fail
to pass the written components?
If you answered yes to any of these questions, you are not
alone.
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| Fiona Prince |
We have entered an era where writing skills in the workplace
determine who advances, who stays put and who gets let go when it’s time to cut
costs. If you are unable to communicate effectively via email; if you don’t
know how to put your thoughts into a logical sequence for a business-case; or,
if you haven’t the faintest idea how to put your recommendations into a
briefing-note, you may find yourself stuck in a dead-end job with little hope
for advancement.
You might think that writing has always been important in
the workplace, but before the mid-1990s most communications occurred
face-to-face and by phone. We had trained secretaries and stenographers who
took notes at meetings, and communications professionals who turned rough
drafts into polished documents. Although these positions still exist in some
organizations, most companies require employees to write clear and concise
emails, coherent reports and engaging presentations.
Most organizations now require their employees to write in
different styles for different audiences, too. For example, email exchanges
between friendly coworkers may be informal and include incomplete sentences,
abbreviations and emoticons; emails sent to management and customers will most
likely be formal and include status reports, recommendations and requests for
decisions. To confuse matters further, as people work together and build
working-relationships, the tone and language in their emails may shift from
informal to formal and back, depending on the subject and whether they are
writing the email on a desktop, tablet or smartphone: the smaller the device,
the shorter the message.
So what can you do to succeed with your writing? Join me in March on campus for How to Improve Your Writing: Impact, Grammar and Editing to help you write clear, concise messages in plain language
for any format (email and print), and in May for How to Improve Your Writing: Impact, Grammar and Editing - ONLINE and Word Power: How to Improve Your Vocabulary and Ability toExpress Yourself, a one-day on-campus workshop to teach you how
to increase your vocabulary, choose the right words and express yourself
clearly.
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Fiona Prince is an enthusiastic communications professional, facilitator and
instructor who blends writing techniques with interpersonal communications
theories and real-world stories to bring you a positive and memorable learning
experience. A recent participant wrote, “When
I get the calendar each year, I look to see what Fiona is teaching. I know I
will learn something valuable that I can use right away to improve my work-life.”
Find out more at cstudies.royalroads.ca.
