Business writing is one of the most critical skills your employees should focus on when it comes to professional development. However, many companies fail to understand the value of employee development until it’s too late.
Based on Lorman, nearly 59% of employees said they had no employee training whatsoever, with 87% of millennials who believe that in-house learning is important. Don’t wait for your employees to look for job opportunities with more lucrative professional development. Here’s how you can improve your employees’ business writing skills and retain them in your company for much longer as a result.
Benefits of Improving your Employees’ Business Writing Skills
To understand how you can help your employees develop their business writing skills, we need to understand why you should do so at all. Business writing relates to any corporate correspondence your employees engage in, either in-house or with third parties.
Emails, reports, financial reports, and project briefs are only some of the documents that require professional business writing skills. According to HR Cloud, 33% of employees leave their jobs for new job opportunities with better benefits, with only 36% of them feeling fully engaged.
Employees who receive business writing skills development courses, seminars, and practice will be far more likely to stay on board with your company. Moreover, word will spread that you offer good professional development opportunities, and it will be easier to attract and retain new talent. These are the benefits you can look forward to given proper employee development:
- Better internal communication
- Mitigate margin for miscommunication
- Improved B2B brand image
- Easier document indexing and storage
- Improved final product quality
Improving your Employees’ Business Writing Skills
Use Dedicated Online Learning Platforms
The easiest way to approach improving your employees’ business writing skills is by introducing E-learning apps to them. There are various platforms available for professional development, and you can acquire different courses for your employees to learn from. Some of the platforms you should consider using are:
- Lynda
- Coursera
- Skillshare
- Udemy
Introducing these platforms to your workflow is especially valuable if you have fresh graduates and interns in your company. They are likely used to academic writing assignments and will benefit greatly from these courses to become professional writers under your roof. Students often think, “I’d like for someone to type my essay online” and they refer to a reliable writing service to save time. Do everything you can to retain young talent in your company and invest in their development early on to entice them into staying with you.
Group Seminars and Coaching Exercises
Another great way to boost your employees’ business writing skills is by reaching out to professional coaching and development agencies or industry professionals. People who have been working with business writing their entire careers are likely to provide your employees with the insight they need.
Group seminars with professional coaches and instructors are a great way for your employees to learn valuable new business writing skills. Reach out to your B2B network and look for individuals or agencies interested in providing you with the learning seminars.
Business Writing Case Study Groups
The best way to learn new skills is through practical experience and case studies. You can find a lot of resources on business writing online, but you can also help employees learn from real-world documents. Go through your past projects and correspondences and look for exemplary emails, reports, and papers.
Organize your employees into groups and arrange for team building exercises. Discuss what is good and bad about each document and how you can improve what you did in the past. Make it clear that these study groups are a safe environment meant for learning and feedback, not an internal conflict. Even if critical business writing mistakes were made in the past, you can all learn from them for the future.
Employee Business Writing Tracking and Feedback
Once your employee development practices are underway, you should monitor your employees’ performance. Look for signs of improvement and changes when it comes to how your employees write corporate documents. You can assign senior staff to coach younger employees to improve everyone’s business writing skills over time.
Don’t leave things to chance, however, and keep an eye out on how your employees treat corporate paperwork. You can use tools such as Grammarly and Hemingway Editor as a means to proofread and format each document before sending it to third parties. Learn to offer useful, objective feedback to employees when you spot mistakes, and they will learn to write better over time.
Other Noteworthy Employee Development Areas to Explore
Once your business writing skill development bears fruit, you can turn your attention to other valuable skills for your employees. The more you invest in their professional development, the higher returns on investment you will experience. Without further ado, here are some of the most noteworthy employee development areas to explore:
- Organizational management
- Collaboration skills
- Time management
- Customer servicing skills
- Problem-solving skills
- Active listening
- Leadership and proactivity
Wrapping Up
There is value to be found in developing your employees’ business writing skills. More than anything, your employees will be able to communicate their plans, feedback, and critique to one another more objectively. As a result, your internal communication will improve, and your company will become more efficient moving forward.
Don’t wait for your employees to express how dissatisfied they are with current professional development or for them to leave your company. Provide tangible value to your staff, and they will become better at their jobs in return.
Author Bio:
Jessica Fender is a professional marketer and a content writer. If you ever wondered, “I wish someone would write my essay for me”, she is one of those professional academic level writers that will save you time and your degree. She enjoys the beach, martial arts, and literature.
