Improve Business Writing Skills to Increase Productivity and Revenue

Mary Cullen
Post by Mary Cullen
Originally published November 25, 2015, updated December 6, 2021
Improve Business Writing Skills to Increase Productivity and Revenue

Your employees’ abilities to write and rewrite, clearly and concisely, goes a long way in establishing a competitive advantage for your business. If you want to make the best first impression on all your customers, clients, vendors, other transacting parties, and anyone who comes in contact with your business, then your employees need to master the art of effective business writing skills.

Because most employees spend a substantial part of each workday writing -- whether it's email, reports, briefings, presentations, or requirements summaries -- improving business writing skills will save your company money and increase employee productivity.

Good writing skills lead to improved productivity and cost savings for the business. When employees spend a lot of time writing reports and end up producing error-prone documents, your business is likely to lose goodwill.

Another issue with poor business writing skills is that it leads to wasted hours of editing and proofreading. This negatively affects your business productivity, since the time spent to make corrections could have been utilized for profit-making activities. Additionally, you might need to hire experienced editors or proofreaders for key business documents, adding more expense to your payroll.

Drastically improve your employees’ business writing skills by conducting business writing training. This will lead to improved productivity and by reducing the average time spent on a single business writing task. Here is empirical proof:

Current Business Writing Skills Scenario

Suppose that your organization has a work unit of 30 workers. Each worker earns $60,000 per year. Similarly, each writer spends 3.2 hours a day on writing. Within an average 40-hour working week, 40% of the time is therefore devoted towards writing.

Current Costs to your Company

Under the current scenario, your company is paying $1,800,000 ($60,000*30) to workers on an annual basis. As already mentioned, each worker spends 40% of his or her time every day in writing. This means that, currently, your business is spending $720,000 ($1,800,000*40%) on an annual basis on your employees’ business writing efforts.

Assuming that there are 240 working days in a year, the total annual employee writing hours are 23040 (240days* 3.2 hours/day* 30 workers). This means that you are currently paying $31.25 per hour ($720,000/23040 hours) as the average annual costs per hour on business writing.

Staff Training - Revised Scenario

Now, let’s consider an alternative. Suppose you train your staff how to improve their business writing skills. Through our 6-step proven business writing methodology, you can reduce your staff’s average time spent on writing by 30%. Keeping all other factors constant, it means that each writer now spends 2.24 hours a day (3.2 hours* 70%) on writing.

Revised Costs to your Company

Even from a quick glance, you can clearly see that improving your staff’s business writing skills will have a strong positive impact on time and money saved. Keeping the number of employees (30), the total annual salary ($1,800,000) and the total working days per year (240) constant, here are new results:

  • Total employee writing costs for the year will reduce to $504,000 (1,800,000*28%)
  • Total annual employee writing hours will decrease to 16,128 (240 days* 2.24 hours* 30 workers)

These simple empirical calculations prove that you can save on your total writing costs by more than $100,000 and total writing hours by 6,912 hours annually. The resources saved can be invested in other business activities to generate profits.

The benefits of an effective business writing skills improvement program are far reaching. They lead to improved information flow, better coordination, and many other growth and branding incentives for a business.

To learn more about the power of business writing and how to improve business writing skills for your employees, download my guide, Four Ways to improve your Team’s Business Writing Skills today!

Or, schedule a complimentary consultation to discuss your team's business writing:

Schedule a Consultation

Mary Cullen
Post by Mary Cullen
Originally published November 25, 2015, updated December 6, 2021
Mary founded Instructional Solutions in 1998, and is an internationally recognized business writing trainer and executive writing coach with two decades of experience helping thousands of individuals and businesses master the strategic skill of business writing. She excels at designing customized business writing training programs to maximize productivity, advance business objectives, and convey complex information. She holds a B.A. in English from the University of Rhode Island, an M.A. in English Literature from Boston College, and a C.A.G.S. in Composition and Rhetoric from the University of New Hampshire.

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