By John Eckberg, Cincinnati Enquirer
The ability to write well is increasingly becoming an express ticket to a decent job.
A 2004 report from a questionnaire to 120 human-resources employees at corporations that employ 8 million workers concludes that workplace writing is a “threshold” skill for hiring and promoting salaried employees.
That means if you can’t write with aplomb, even verve, you won’t get past the threshold of the front door and certainly won’t make it to the corner office.
Produced in conjunction with 120 human resources representatives of companies in the Business Roundtable, which includes giants such as Procter & Gamble, General Electric, Sara Lee and Western & Southern Financial Group, the study found that writing ability is woefully lacking in corporate America.
Leaders believed that clear writing meant clear thinking and that an employee who can write well is an employee who is ready to be promoted.
“The strength of corporate complaints about the writing skills of college graduates was surprisingly powerful,” the report concluded.
Keep in mind that this imperative for better writing is coming from the corner of commerce that brought us phrases such as “paradigm shift,” “results-driven,” “robust networks,” “seamless integration” and “top-line growth.”
The human resources report also found that:
Half the companies surveyed almost always make writing a consideration before any promotion occurs.
The private-sector cost for providing writing training is projected at $3.1 billion during 2005. That’s about $2,500 to $3,500 per worker.
E-mail has replaced the one-page interoffice memo as the most common form of written communication.
One-third of employees do not have decent writing skills.
None of this surprises Thomas Clark, a professor at the Williams College of Business at Xavier University in Cincinnati.
Clark teaches a communications class – a one-day, one-page memo seminar – for Procter & Gamble interns and new employees.
After 23 years and more than 1,000 workshops, Clark says that his message has not changed much: Clear writing means brevity. Get to who, what, why and when right away.
One trend that has been sweeping through the workplace, he said, is the increasing prominence of e-mail and voice mail.
“Highly effective e-mail and highly effective voice mail – if you practice it every day, it will be reflected in your presentations and in your reports,” Clark said.
Job-hunters should not rely on e-mail, though, particularly for thank-you notes.
“We recently had a student beat out another from another university for an internship at a top company in town,” Clark said. “She wrote a four-paragraph thank-you letter rather than a one-paragraph e-mail like the other candidate.
“The letter she got back stated that it was clear that she was more interested in the position than the competition.”
Does clear writing really matter? After all, unclear communication works, too.
Clark has no doubt: “Crisp, everyday communication is a competitive advantage.”
