4 Responses

1. Spelin
   You can have spellcheck set on Outlook to automatically check the spelling of an email before it’s sent, although it can be irritating.

   You may like to practice what you preach though!

2. Suggestion and thoughts
   If you want to deal with this in a training context you could circulate examples of ‘poor’ emails and ask the participants to turn them into ‘excellent’ emails, based on a set of ‘rules’ about writing in a formal business style, using correct English, promoting company image etcetera. However, post-training, in the absence of careful proof reading by someone who takes the trouble to spell-check, who knows the rules of grammar, punctuation and syntax, and who appreciates the importance of creating a good impression with customers, this might only be a partial solution. How will you ensure that your participants ‘buy into’ this change in their working practice and that post-training there is a measurable improvement?

3. Reply to Eddie
   Thanks Eddie for the useful and constructive advice. Any more help from anyone else with experience in the field of Grammar techniques?

4. Multiple approaches
   Hi

   There’s several interventions to think about here, not just training.

   The first is thinking about writing skills as a recruitment requirement. If you expect employees to correspond by e-mail as part of their role then make an e-mailed application part of the filtering process.

   Next think about how many of the messages that need to go out are standard. Can people simply cut and paste standard paragraphs into a message to speed them up and ensure consistency.

   Making spell and grammar check compulsory is a good idea to cut out silly typo’s but can’t make your people good at written English.

   Simple rules is the best way to go, we work with lots of people on business writing, and they respond very well when it’s made interesting and relevant to their role.

   Good luck

   Claudine
   http://www.structuredtraining.com/