Write Better at Work

Sharpen your writing skills and get your point across

Writing is an important part of your job, but how do you do it well?

This four week, online professional development training, brought to you by experts in writing for business, will give you the tools to communicate clearly and persuasively, and the confidence to make people listen.

You’ll study in a small group with an expert tutor who will arm you with a practical toolkit of tips and tricks to give your writing impact, energy and, above all, clarity.

As this course is CPD accredited, you can book a place on the course as an individual, or block-book a class for your team.

Duration: 4 weeks
Skill level: Beginner
Frequency: Weekly
Sessions: 4

Write Better at Work is for anyone who needs to write for work – emails, presentations, product descriptions, online content, blog or social posts.

It is designed both for those new to the workplace and anyone who wants to give their writing a boost. Whatever your level of skill, you’ll gain fresh perspectives on how you write and discover new ways to write better.

The training is suitable if you:

• Write regularly at work, whether internally or to customers
• Would like to improve your writing skills
• Want to be more influential and effective in the workplace
• Would like to learn a set of techniques and frameworks to apply in your day to day role
• Need templates for emails, presentations and blog posts
• Work remotely and would like to communicate more effectively with a scattered team
• Are looking to grow your creative skills
• Enjoy the discipline of deadlines and peer feedback
• Want to join a friendly and supportive small group of learners
• Can dedicate 2 hours per week to the learning (at a time to suit you)

Session 1: Clear Language

The nuts and bolts of language – word choice, quantity of words vs quantity of information, simplicity – and how to strip back your writing to unclog, cut the clutter and write shorter and clearer. We’ll tackle jargon, clichés and the passive voice, and you’ll rework a very short piece of your own writing.

Session 2: Effortless Sentences

A guide to the simplest structure you can build out of words – the sentence – and how to sequence information in a way that is easy to read using paragraphs. We’ll introduce the concept of ‘The News’, and how to use it to construct a clear argument or story. You’ll find an example of writing at work to re-engineer.

Session 3: It’s About People

Why you need to take your reader’s perspective to get your message across. Who to address when writing, speaking to a single reader, and the single most important word in your writing: ‘You’. You’ll rewrite a corporate announcement to speak directly to the reader.

Session 4: Strong Sentences

We’ll look at a basic structure you can use for all kinds of writing at work – the inverted pyramid – then zoom in with a pocket practical guide to writing four key types of communication: email, presentation, blog post and production description/social post. There are handy templates to takeaway. You’ll plan and write two key pieces of writing you use most often at work using the News–Problem–Solution–What Next structure.

At the end of the training you will submit two from the following, for individual written feedback from your tutor:

• An email to a team member, customer or manager
• A short presentation
• A very short piece of writing eg. product description or social post
• A short blog post