Poor writing skills can hurt business

Elizabeth Short manages major shows and events across Canada for some of the world’s best-known brands.

From background research and creative concept to presentation and implementation, everything must be on strategy, on target and on time.

In her world, words matter. “Organizational and communication skills are critical in our business — so is attention to detail,” Short says.

“We correspond with numerous people every day and have relationships that have been built over years. One ill-conceived email can spell disaster for contract negotiations, equipment orders or client expectations.

“Many people take a casual approach to communication, she says. “It creates a decline in professionalism, takes longer to gain trust and is a testament to inexperience.”

Canadian statistics are sparse, but a study by the National Commission on Writing found that 64 of the largest U.S. corporations, employing close to eight million people, spend as much as $3.1 billion annually to follow up on the poor writing skills of employees.

“The writing skills of those coming into the workforce are more deficient than ever before,” says Paul Fink, senior vice-president with CBRE commercial real estate brokers.

“Gone are the days of wordprocessing pools with people trained to format business correspondence. Today there is a computer on every desk being used by those who have never learned how to compose a letter.”

Email and social media are also part of the problem.

“People rarely make phone calls anymore,” Short adds. “You don’t often get the same level of information from quickly composed emails.

“And Twitter and Facebook, with their limited characters, are affecting language in other contexts. All of the basic rules of respectful, clear, concise English should be applied but are not.”