Writing is a crucial skill for any team, especially in the corporate world. Whether you need to communicate with clients, colleagues, or stakeholders, you want your messages to be clear, concise, and convincing. But how can you improve your team's writing skills and ensure consistency and quality across all your documents? Here are some tips to help you achieve that goal.
Before you start any training or coaching, you need to identify your team's strengths and weaknesses in writing. You can do this by conducting a survey, reviewing samples of their work, or asking for feedback from their readers. You should also consider the specific types of writing that your team needs to produce, such as emails, reports, proposals, or presentations. Based on your assessment, you can prioritize the areas that need improvement and set realistic and measurable goals for your team.
Before you assess your team's needs, assess your writing goals. Do you need basic web copy or rousing speeches? Social media fodder or long-form articles? From there, assess your team in general and then their needs. If you've adapted to a new form of storytelling or communicating, but your teams either aren't aware or able to, your team's needs will change drastically. Understand what you're asking of someone before asking for it.
One way to help your team improve their writing skills is to provide them with useful resources and tools that they can access anytime and anywhere. For example, you can create a style guide that outlines the standards and guidelines for your team's writing, such as tone, format, grammar, and punctuation. You can also share online courses, books, podcasts, or blogs that offer tips and advice on various aspects of writing. Additionally, you can recommend tools such as grammar checkers, spell checkers, readability checkers, or plagiarism checkers that can help your team polish their writing and avoid errors.
Don't forget that the most valuable resource to a writer is time. Yes, there will be deadlines and quick turnaround times, but when you can, above all else, give them time. A speech draft or any other emotionally connected piece of writing cannot be rushed. Asking writers to do so compromises their work and sets them up for failure.
Another way to help your team improve their writing skills is to encourage feedback and collaboration among them. You can do this by creating a culture of constructive criticism and peer review, where your team members can give and receive honest and respectful feedback on their writing. You can also facilitate collaboration by using platforms or tools that allow your team to work on documents together, such as Google Docs, Dropbox, or Slack. By doing so, you can foster a sense of teamwork and learning, as well as improve the quality and consistency of your team's writing.
A more formal way to help your team improve their writing skills is to organize training and coaching sessions for them. You can do this by hiring an external trainer or coach who can deliver customized and interactive workshops or webinars on topics such as writing for different audiences, purposes, and contexts; writing with clarity, conciseness, and coherence; writing with persuasion and impact; or writing with style and flair. Alternatively, you can also leverage the expertise of your internal staff who have excellent writing skills and ask them to mentor or coach your team members.
Finally, a way to help your team improve their writing skills is to recognize and reward their progress and achievements. You can do this by providing positive and specific feedback on their writing, highlighting their improvements and successes, and celebrating their milestones and accomplishments. You can also offer incentives or rewards such as certificates, badges, bonuses, or recognition programs that can motivate your team to keep improving their writing skills and strive for excellence.
1) explain and brief them different perspectives for that piece of content that needs to be drafted 2) inculcate a habit in them of proof reading atleast 3 times before it is shared with anyone else. This helps them identify their own errors and helps them fix it 3) proof read with the team member so they know what and how can the writing be improved
"Without a doubt, the most important thing is continuous correction. Some key suggestions include: - reading aloud (this allows us to notice if the text is not too lengthy and if there are no repetitions) - checking words in an online dictionary, both to verify their spelling and to avoid repetitions in the text. - Letting the written material 'rest' for some time and returning to read it later: distance allows us to find errors and improvement options. Finally, asking someone else to read it and provide their perspective."