Developing good writing skills for the workplace is a must for all employees at all levels. What you write and how you write it will have a lasting impression on your reader, so it is important that you use careful language and present yourself to the best of your ability. Fortunately these skills are something you can learn and consistently hone, so whether you’re communicating with your boss, a client or a prospective client, you can develop the written skills to engage and impress anyone.
Everyone has had the misfortune of being presented with a document that is so badly written that it is immediately difficult to digest. Unfortunately with this comes a certain amount of judgement of the author, and certainly a lack of trust. It may instil feelings of incompetence and discomfort in the reader, and the author could easily find themselves with a black mark against their name for just this one offence. It’s important to ask yourself if you could potentially find yourself in this situation especially in a business capacity, as mistakes like this can cost your company not only money, but can also have a negative impact on the impression of the brand.
Developing your writing skills is an absolute must, not only to avoid the above, but also to set yourself apart from the competition in the workplace. Improving your written communication will not only impress others within the business, but it might also be the help you need to be considered for important promotions. It seems almost unfair that your writing skills can have such an impression on those around you, but the reality is that your writing says so much more to the reader than just your ability to form sentences. From your writing, the reader will also get a certain impression about your professionalism, your work ethic, and also your integrity.
Learn how to improve your professional writing skills to ensure you are giving yourself the best possible chance of success
The first thing to do when writing anything is to establish what you’re trying to achieve. Establishing a clear message is one of the most important things when it comes to demonstrating good writing skills, so you must ask yourself firstly why you’re writing the document, and secondly what it is that you most want to convey. Messaging can take many different forms including educating your reader, persuading your reader, challenging your reader, entertaining your reader or reporting to your reader. Establishing exactly what you’re looking to get across will help you in choosing your writing style and tone.
The second important thing to establish is a connection with your reader. Good writing skills allow you to connect with your reader on a level that helps them to understand exactly what your message is, quickly. Asking yourself who you’re targeting with your message is the key, this will help you to ascertain how much information you need to convey, how familiar they are with what you’re writing about and how much time they may have to digest your information. Knowing your audience is vital in order to tailor your message in the right way.
Once you have understood your aims and you know who your audience is, it is time to plan the outline of your document. Now you must ask yourself what information is necessary to include, what information you should lead with to immediately engage your audience, and what your most important points are to get across. You should include bullet points for each of those things at this stage to give structure to the document.
Now that the structure of the document is in place, it’s time to go over each point and fill it out in detail. When you’re writing the main body of your document, it is imperative that you are reminding yourself at all times what your aim is, so as not to go too far off track. At this stage it is all about getting down as much information as you believe to be necessary to inform your reader and make your key points.
Once you have completed your document, it’s time to take a step back before reviewing it and losing any unnecessary word count. It’s important to remember here that less really is more — if you’re using any filler language, be sure to remove it. Unnecessarily long pieces of writing risk your reader seeing it as a chore to read, and subsequently risking them not engaging with it at all. Now is also your chance to check for any spelling or grammatical errors. These are the most important thing to eliminate from your document. Errors will only serve for your reader to question your competence, so if there’s anything you’re unsure about, be sure to double check it and get it corrected accordingly.
Following the above will be beneficial in demonstrating that when it comes to writing skills, you know what you’re doing. This will go a long way in impressing your colleagues, and may even help you to secure new business, or that coveted promotion. The demonstration of good writing skills is not to be underestimated.
If you’re looking to develop your writing skills to a more professional level, or if this is a service you think would be beneficial to your employees, be sure to take a look around our website to better understand how we can help you to achieve this.