Essential Writing Skills for the Workplace

Professionals in various lines of work have endless ideas floating through their minds, but what happens when they try to convey them through written words? There is a struggle at times to effectively get the buy-in from your audience, and that is what you want to avoid in an ever-changing business landscape.

Develop the professional communication skills that will help you and your team to excel in writing effective business correspondences.

After the workshop, you will be able to:

• Understand the fundamentals of business writing
• Write in a professional manner
• Learn to avoid common mistakes in writing
• Write in a courteous and complete manner that will satisfy your reader
• Create messages that are clear and concise
• Less is more – without the loss of quality
• Further develop your writing for more specialised documents
• Gain greater confidence by becoming more convincing, credible and effective in your communication

Outline

• Introduction
  – Importance of effective business writing skills
  – Common errors to avoid
  – Defining the purpose of your message

• Avoid making assumptions
  – Choose concrete and familiar words
  – Beware of obsolete and flowery languages
  – Put action in your verb

• Clarity and word choice
  – Eliminate unnecessary jargon
  – Choose the language that achieves your goal (of writing)

• Style and tone
  – Writing with a ‘YOU’ attitude – what it means to be focused on your reader
  – Be empathic, sincere, tactful and thoughtful
  – Confidence in a polite tone

• Writing concisely
  – Eliminate redundant and wordy expressions
  – Include only the relevant information
  – Avoid unnecessary repetition

• Usage of proper grammar
  – Learn to do proper content editing
  – Choose the correct words and phrases
  – Proofreading

• Building rapport with your reader
  – How to empathise with your customers
  – Build trust and relationship through your writing
  – Improve your credibility through your style of writing

• Format in Business Writing
  – How to write proper subject lines
  – Improve readability for your audience
  – Use appropriate sentence structure and paragraphs

• Correct writing style
  – Writing up, across and down

• Ensure completeness
  – Provide only the necessary information
  – How to tend to queries when you do not have all the answers
  – Go the extra mile