Many employees complain about the lack of effective communication in their organisations. In addition, research shows that ineffective communication often results in lower productivity, and makes employees want to leave their jobs. Therefore we have prepared the following brief guidelines on different channels of communication and some tips on their use.

The written communication is necessary if you want your reader to have a permanent record of your message. However, you should remember that written communication is not always read as soon as it is received. Memos and e-mails can be easily overlooked or delayed for later consumption. So, if your information needs immediate action, don’t use this medium.

When preparing a longer, written document outline the key points before you write out the first draft. Then write short notes before composing your full text. At the next stage, review it with the intention of reducing the word count by 25 per cent. Proof-read the final version before sending it off.

E-mail can be an excellent means of follow-up, so as to ensure correct understanding of the next steps after a meeting. When you write an e-mail or a memo, write a brief, clear reference to your topic in the ‘Subject’ field.

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Tips on Effective Business Writing

Here are the basics of business writing – tips to keep your written communications sharp and effective. These tips provide the basics of good business writing and will always stand you in good stead.

· Keep your writing simple, short and to the point.

· Write positively. If you use a negative, try to find a solution or reason.

· Spend time on your headline. Everybody reads a headline, so use an attention-grabbing statement.

· Get to the point: put first things first. The opening paragraph should be particularly clear and easy to understand.

· Stress the benefits to the reader in both your headline and text.

· Make the text look both neat and interesting by breaking it up with paragraphs. In that way the letter will be much easier to read. If a paragraph contains more than three sentences, break it up.

· Start sentences with the main clause and not with a subsidiary one. An example of putting the subsidiary clause first would be as follows: “To make the copy easier to read, break up the text with paragraphs.”

· Aim your writing at the reader or customer by turning ‘I/we’ into ‘You’ wherever possible. The rule is to use 4 ‘you's’ for every ‘I’.

· Put the reader’s wants and needs first. Even in a letter to your boss you are ‘selling something’ – yourself or an idea. People tend to buy what they want from people they know and like.

· Write a powerful introduction and conclusion.

· Mind your language – be sure you look for strong, active and attractive words. Also, keep adjectives and adverbs to a minimum. Go for one really good word rather than two or three woolly ones.

· Watch out for jargon and popular phrases. They are a blight on your business letters, so root them out.

· Write actively – subject, verb, object.

· Keep sentences short (maximum 15 words) and vary the length of sentences.

· Make only one point per sentence: your reader does not want to be overwhelmed with information.

· Be friendly and polite. Establish trust and credibility.

· Keep the number of points to a minimum – between 3 and 5.

· End the document by saying what will happen next, encourage the reader to take some action, make clear what action you will take and follow that up.

· In a letter use a PS, as many people read the PS as the headline and intro.

· An excellent way of testing your business letters is to read them out loud to see how they sound.

· Always show complicated business letters to other people for a second opinion. What you write may not be what is read – you may accidentally cause offence to the reader.

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Can Snail Mail Beat E-mail?

When e-mail first came into general use about fifteen years ago, there was a lot of talk about the imminent arrival of the paperless office. However, it seems that e-mail has yet to revolutionise office communication. According to communications analyst Richard Metcalf, some offices have actually seen an increase in paper as a result of e-mail. ‘Information in the form of e-mail messages now floods our computer screens. These messages can be sent so quickly that memos tend to be distributed in the hundreds. For those secretaries whose bosses ask them to print out all their e-mails and leave them in their in-trays, this means using up a great deal of paper every month’.

Metcalf has found that because e-mails have a tendency to get lost in cyberspace, PAs are increasingly likely to be asked by clients and colleagues to send all important documents both by e-mail and by fax or snail mail – through the post. ‘This highlights a further potential problem with e-mail in today’s office – it is taking up time rather than saving it’.

‘With e-mail, communication is much easier, but there is also more room for misunderstandings,’ says psychologist Dr David Lewis. Generally, much less care is taken with e-mails than with letters or faxes where the sender will probably print the document and reread it before putting it in an envelope or on to the fax machine. ‘The nature of the medium means that e-mails are frequently poorly and hastily composed and consequently often unclear. It’s little wonder that there are so many misunderstandings. It is a problem which people need to be particularly aware of when using e-mail’.

More worrying still is the increasing misuse of e-mail for sending ‘flame-mail’ – abusive or inappropriate e-mail messages. Recent research in several companies suggests that aggressive communications like this are on the increase. E-mail has become the perfect medium for letting out workplace frustration because it is so instant.

E-mail can be problematic in other ways. Staff all too often make the mistake of thinking that the contents of an e-mail, like things said over the phone, are private and not permanent. But it is not only possible for an employer to read all your e-mails, it is also perfectly legal. E-mail messages can be traced back to their origin for a period of at least two years, so you might want to rethink e-mailing colleagues your frustrations about your job. The advice is to keep personal e-mails out of the office.

It goes without saying that e-mail exists to make life easier and if used correctly is an invaluable tool for businesses of all sizes. But perhaps, for the time being, the fact that in the business world 70% of all documents are still in paper form is not such a bad thing after all.

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How to Get Your E-mail Read

Writing and sending e-mails used to be simple but has become more complicated with the growth of spam. Here’s how to enhance your on-line messages, to avoid the spam cops and get your e-mails read. Use these tips to enhance and sustain the excellence of your e-mail writing.

1. Get permission. Make sure your audience knows you and that they have given you permission to contact them, or opted in to receive your e-mail.

2. Avoid spam. Spam is Unsolicited Commercial E-mail (UCE) which now arrives unwanted in your inbox and probably accounts for 50 per cent of all incoming mail. Avoid spam at all costs.

3. Opt-in. Always allow the reader a chance to opt-in and to unsubscribe, or give you a change of address.

4. Write a clear headline. The subject must be short and entice the recipient to open the mail. But avoid ‘enticing’ words like ‘free’ and ‘you’.

5. Brevity is best. Keep the text short and clearly set out.

6. Put the reader first. Think ‘You’ rather than ‘I’ when writing. Make your e-mails useful and informative so people will look forward to getting them.

7. Great content wins. Offer plenty of free advice. This will help to pre-sell your services or products because readers will be a mood to buy.

8. Stay in touch. Repeat the communication process regularly. Your readers are your potential customers. And remember to keep saying ‘Thank you’.

9. Use sig files. Sign off with your name and a ‘sig’ file (three or four lines of information about yourself, your product or your website).

10. Respect Privacy. Have a clear and concise privacy policy. Assure your readers that their e-mail address will never be passed on to a third party. Unethical players make money by harvesting e-mail addresses, and selling on their lists. (That’s how spam grows and grows apparently without effort).

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Three Envelopes

A new manager spends a week at his new office with the manager he is replacing. On the last day the departing manager tells him, ‘I have left three numbered envelopes in the desk drawer. Open an envelope if you face a crisis you can’t solve’. Three months later there is a major crisis, everything

goes wrong and the manager doesn’t know what to do. He remembers the parting of his predecessor and opens the first envelope. The message inside says ‘Blame your predecessor!’ He does this and gets out of the difficult situation. About six months later, the company is experiencing a collapse in sales, together with serious product problems. The manager quickly opens the second envelope. The message reads ‘Reorganise!’ This he does, and the company quickly recovers. The following year, at his next crisis, he opens the third envelope. The message inside says ‘Prepare three envelopes’.

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