Consulting
The average employee spends 20.4 hours per week writing.
—Josh Bernhoff (2016)
What is writing costing your organization?
Writing often gets overlooked as if it is not the “real” work, but it’s how your important work gets done. Businesses pay a high cost to produce documents. We have found that cost is twice what it needs to be.
We help with your systems and processes, not just your writers
Most writing and review processes haven’t been updated in a long time. Streamlining processes results in:
the same work done in half the time
clearer documents with greater power to effect change
happier, clearer, and more engaged employees
savings for years to come
Writing doesn’t need to be hard or time consuming
We work with a coordinator or team inside your organization to develop a tailored program based on the issues you want to resolve.
We have the map to guide you
We divide the process into concrete steps to get everyone on the same page. This includes offering training, identifying inefficiencies and confusion in the current process, and creating tools for simple, repeatable solutions.
Six symptoms of problems in writing processes
Common issues that suggest process problems:
Documents that are overwritten and unclear
Long timeframes and considerable pressure to produce documents
Tension between writers and reviewers
Reviewers working after hours
Increased risk from unclear communication
Unsatisfied or disconnected readers
Nothing is particularly hard if you divide it into small jobs.
—Henry Ford
Pick and choose the right components for a tailored program
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Audit documents and review processes
Identify inefficiencies and unnecessary rework, gaps, and areas of confusion
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Get leaders on board
Bring executive teams in for a short presentations, so they see and support the importance of a program
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Update templates
Build templates that reproduce clarity and consistency (and don’t make a writer’s job harder)
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Train your people
Give writers and reviewers a shared approach so drafting is faster and the lines of communication are clearer
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Articulate clear standards
Give writers a clear target and guidelines for the quality of writing you want
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Define roles and responsibilities
Make the levels of review fit like puzzle pieces. Eliminate waste from all reviewers working on the same issues from slightly different angles.
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Create excellent model documents
Model what excellent documents look like, so writers can refer to and be inspired by them
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In-house facilitation
Bring us in to work with small or large teams on specific documents or to transform processes together
What our clients say about their tailored writing programs
Writers and reviewers find that writing is faster and easier overall. Our quality assessment measures show that writing quality is improving. Our staff are engaged and driving a plain-language culture through the organization.
- Sarah Bradley, Ombudsman at the Ombudsman for Banking Services and Investments
Wordsmith has helped our organization tremendously. We broadly trained our staff in writing reports and I’ve seen an improvement in the quality of our writing. The reports are clearer, better organized and simply easier to read. The more staff that we can get this training, the better.
—Ray MacIntosh, Chief Financial Officer for the City of Red Deer
Specific highlights from my Executive Team included:
“I saw an immediate and lasting improvement in my branch and the PSC as a whole. Products became much more conversational and concise. The biggest benefit was that it gave people a sense of permission to leave extraneous details out. It definitely reduced the amount of time spent on reviews and revisions.”
—Lana Lougheed, Deputy Minister of the Public Service Commission