Health Care Attitudes: Is Your Industry Healthy?

Posted on 05/15/2013 by sharon

Last year, Providence Business News in Rhode Island “announced the winners of its newest event, Healthiest Employers, which recognizes companies–large and small–that have health and wellness initiatives and believe in encouraging employees to adapt healthy lifestyles.”

Oddly enough, about 40% of the 28 winning companies were in health-related fields, from insurance to preventive care. A similar top-20 list by the Kansas City Business Journal featured a rehabilitation center, an insurance broker, a medical center and a hospital–20% of the total winners.

Now maybe companies in the healthcare and insurance industries have a greater commitment than most companies to employee health. (Or maybe they are just more aware of health-related contests!)

How would you rate your industry for its attitude toward employee health? Take the poll on LinkedIn at Let’s Talk Health Care or leave your comments here.

Disclosure: I’ve partnered with Harvard Pilgrim on this sponsored post. However, the thoughts and opinions expressed are my own. You can find more ways to be well at HarvardPilgrim.org/CountUsIn and Let’s Talk Health Care.

The Biggest Mistake in Technical Writing

Posted on 05/11/2013 by sharon

The biggest mistake in technical writing? A conviction that high tech products and services can only be described in “high-tech language”–a conviction that complicated sentences, multi-syllable words, acronyms and jargon are necessary to convince customers that, yes, this product is truly amazing.

As a result, customers struggling to understand a new technology first have to fight their way through weird sentence structures and vocabularies.

For example, take this 43-word sentence: “The traditional approach of splitting up the control system and power distribution system into numerous sub-contracts is not an optimal solution because the operating company has to operate, maintain and periodically evaluate a multitude of disparate products and subsystems over the project’s life-cycle.”

In that sentence, a very simple concept (basically, “too many cooks spoil the stew”) has been made difficult and obscure.

Here’s my suggested rewrite: “Traditionally, a complete control or power distribution system is made up of products and subsystems from many different subcontractors. The operating company that has to operate, maintain and evaluate all those different subsystems faces a difficult task over the project’s entire life-cycle.”

If you find your writing mired in “high-tech language,” send out an email to TWP Marketing & Technical Communications. Your customers will thank you.

Frequently Asked Grammar Questions

Posted on 05/06/2013 by sharon

This post is a quick Q&A to answer some grammar questions that drive people nuts.

Q. How can I tell if it’s “it’s” or “its”?

A. “It’s” means “it is” and “its” means “belonging to it.” Write your sentence and then try this: When you come to “it’s,” read “it is” instead. Does the sentence still make sense? When you come to “its,” read “his” (or “her”) instead. Does the sentence still make sense? If it does (“It is a good thing the dog went to his house”), you are using the right words. If the sentence doesn’t make sense (“His a good thing the dog went to it is house”), you are using the wrong words. By the way, its’ (with the apostrophe after the s) isn’t a word.

Q. What’s the difference between “insure,” “assure,” and “ensure”?

A. They are close in meaning but try to keep them separate. Use “insure” when you are talking about an insurance policy (“he wanted to insure his boat”). Use “assure” for the act of reassuring or pacifying someone (“he assured her he was a good sailor”). Use “ensure” in the sense of “make sure” (“with daily maintenance, he ensured the boat was seaworthy”).

Q. When should I use a semicolon?

A. The three most frequent uses of a semicolon are (1) to separate a series of items when the items contain commas, as used in this sentence; (2) to separate an independent clause that starts with “however” from the rest of the sentence (“He is a good sailor; however, he could be better with training.”); and (3) to join two independent clauses together without the use of “and” or “but” or some other conjunction (“He is a good sailor; he would be better with training.”). Independent clauses can also be written as two separate sentences with a period between.

If you want more information about grammar, I highly recommend two books: The Elements of Style by William Strunk, Jr. and E.B. White; and The Little, Brown Compact Handbook.

Send me your grammar questions. I’ll be happy to reply with answers for you.

Workplace Stress: Where It Comes From/Where It’s Going

Posted on 05/01/2013 by sharon

Cartoonist Matt Groening’s book Work Is Hell dates from 1985; but his list of what makes a job really really bad resonates today, nearly 30 years later. His sources of stress include work overload or underload, time pressures, insecurity about the job, malicious or unfriendly co-workers, boredom, unpleasant bosses, hopelessness, cynicism and physical problems (like back ache). The Work Is Hell philosophy is that we keep in these situations either because misery loves company or because companies love misery.

Companies are trying to prove they don’t love misery. Many of them are emphasizing employee engagement, sending managers to leadership training, investigating flex-time, trying to address work/life balance and watching out for bullying, as well as providing employees with more information about health and more access to gyms and healthy snacks.

Is any of that helping? Is the problem even capable of solution? Does the amount of stress you feel on the job depend on where your job falls in the corporate pyramid, on outside factors like the overall economy or on your own day-by-day state of mind?

Leave your comments here or join the discussion on LinkedIn at Let’s Talk Health Care.

Writing with Authority

Posted on 04/24/2013 by sharon

Countless blogs have been written, for men and women, about speaking with authority in meetings and before groups of employees, executives and peers. When it comes to writing with authority, not a single writer speaks up! Here are a few tips I’ve gathered over the years as a professional writer:

Tip 1. Do not write to impress; write to communicate. You convey more authority if you contain the long explanations, self-congratulations and business jargon. (“In regard to your recent communication, we are proud to extend to you the following proposal for installing our state-of-the-art, quality engineered product….”)

Tip 2. Be kind to your audience. You are the expert at what you do. Explain or avoid technical terms and acronyms, especially if they are peculiar to your company. You may think that “everyone knows that” but if they don’t, you’ve lost your audience.

Tip 3. Deliver your main point in the opening sentence or paragraph. A few years ago, researchers collected emails from C-level executives and their employees and found that C-level executives communicated with fewer words and shorter sentences, primarily because they got to the point faster. If background and explanations are essential, let your correspondent know you have provided them after the conclusions.

Tip 4. Know when to stop writing. If you aren’t communicating by email, then stop communicating by email: pick up the phone.

If your proposals, blogs, letters to customers, emails to management or employees or marketing copy are not projecting authority, contact TWP Marketing & Technical Communications. Our words mean business.

Twelve Ways to Hire a Really Bad Employee

Posted on 04/20/2013 by sharon

The following guest blog comes from Paula Mathews of HR Compliance 101 . You can receive more great advice by signing up for her newsletter. Thank you, Paula!

Every time you hire someone you don’t know or haven’t checked out, you put your company at risk. Bad hires drain morale and resources. Some of them even make a profession out of suing employers for harassment, discrimination or bad working conditions.

Here are twelve ways to guarantee that sooner or later you’ll hire someone you wish you’d never seen:

1. Take it for granted that the candidate’s resume was written by the candidate.

2. Let candidates take applications home to fill out, where their friends can help with the reading and writing.

3. Don’t check resumes for unexplained gaps or job switches.

4. Don’t conduct phone or onsite interviews.

5. Don’t worry about what you ask or don’t ask during the interviews.

6. Don’t show candidates where they’ll work and don’t mention the skills they’ll need. Let everyone be surprised when they show up for work and can’t do the job.

7. Don’t involve your current employees in the hiring process.

8. Don’t get references.

9. Don’t worry if a candidate doesn’t remember the names or contact information of past employers.

10. Don’t check references.

11. Don’t verify dates of hire and termination at previous jobs. Let the candidate hide work gaps by changing the start and end dates of jobs.

12. Don’t bother to send out letters to people you reject. You’ll never see them again, so be as rude as you like.

HR Compliance 101 has helped many companies set up interview processes that avoid bad hires, keep companies safe from lawsuits, and also save time and money. For example, phone interviews are a good way to quickly reduce the number of candidates; they take about 15 minutes. The few candidates who remain can then be invited to lengthier onsite interviews.

A phone or onsite interview lets you eliminate candidates who clearly don’t have the correct skills, don’t fit your company culture, or have expectations (for pay, vacation, shifts) that you can’t meet. If you wait until after the interviews to check references, you’ll have far fewer references to check.

Another way to save yourself needless effort is to ask your current employees whether they know any of the candidates on your final list. People build reputations in their field; your current employees can steer you away from those who have built bad reputations.

How Women’s Health Differs from Men’s Health in the Workplace

Posted on 04/17/2013 by sharon

We all know that on average women live longer than men. We all know that women and men have different incidences of certain diseases or conditions–for example, men are more likely to be color blind. But when we think of health differences that uniquely affect women in the workplace, most of us would automatically mention “pregnancy” and quit.

However, according to various studies from the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, the Society for Women’s Health Research and other organizations, women are also more prone to many other conditions at work, including repetitive strain disorders (such as carpel tunnel syndrome), respiratory diseases, anxiety and stress. Part of the difference reflects the fact that many more women than men hold insecure part-time, temporary or contingent jobs. Fear over losing their jobs may make women less willing to speak up about conditions leading to workplace injuries, diseases or stress.

In addition, male bosses may be less responsive to the complaints of female workers simply because the male bosses aren’t as affected by those conditions.

Have you noticed a difference at work in the health concerns of men and women? Should companies be addressing this difference? Let us know what you think at Let’s Talk Health Care.

How to Describe Your Workshop and Seminar to Bring in an Audience

Posted on 04/14/2013 by sharon

Recently I was asked by the Hannah Grimes Center in Keene to provide some writing tips for instructors trying to create compelling descriptions of their workshops or seminars. The following 10 quick writing tips focus on workshop and seminar descriptions but they also apply to other types of writing.

1. Don’t use exclamation points.Instead, answer your audience’s most important question: What will I got out of this workshop? What will it help me to do or become?

2. Don’t rely on the jargon of the moment (“become more proactive,” “learn state-of-the art techniques”). Think about people searching for your workshop online: does anyone ever search on “proactive” or “state-of-the-art”?

3. Don’t congratulate yourself (“the best workshop you’ll ever attend”). If you have a short testimonial from a past participant, use it.

4. Write like you talk. Pretend you are describing your workshop to someone standing next to you. What words did you use? Those words are golden; write them down.

5. Be brief. Describe your workshop or seminar in 200 words, then cut back to 100 words. Then write a Tweet about it. You’ll discover what is essential in your 200 words and what you can easily delete.

6. Count syllables. Circle any words that have 3 syllables or more. Replace as many as possible with 1 or 2 syllable words (for example, replace “utilize” with “use”—that works every time).

7. Count words in a sentence. Count 18 words from the start of the sentence. No period or colon (:)? Your sentence is too long. Anything under 18 words is fine. After 24 words, you’re in trouble.

8. When writing a title, go for clear before cute. Make sure the title tells people what you are going to talk about. The last sentence you write in your workshop description will probably contain your title (one of those oddities of life).

9. Proofread on paper. Never proofread on the computer screen. Online spell-checkers are okay but online grammar-checkers are terrible.

10. Ask one person to read and comment on your description. Don’t ask 4 people. You’ll get 16 contradictory opinions.

If you need help describing your workshop or seminar–or a group of abstracts for a major industry event–please contact TWP Marketing & Technical Communications.

Marketing Audit: Reaching the Right Customers in the Right Way

Posted on 04/07/2013 by sharon

In a constantly changing marketplace, marketing content can easily get out of synch with reality: your products and services, customers, mission and reach may be quite different now than 10, 5 or even 2 years ago.

When I first started my sole proprietorship in New Hampshire, I thought I would be writing user manuals full time for software development companies. I still write user manuals, but now my main business is marketing writing. My marketplace has also expanded to both technical and nontechnical companies, including a manufacturer in Texas, a university in Massachusetts, a resume writer in Atlanta and a management consultant in New Hampshire.

Has your business also shifted? The only way to be sure you’re reaching the right customers in the right way is to conduct a marketing communications audit.

I recently conducted such an audit for a company considering an upgrade to their website. Among other problems I found inconsistent information on the website pages and related downloads; grammatical and spelling errors, clearly introduced when someone made quick fixes; listings for products that no longer exist; and links to Facebook and Twitter accounts that had been abandoned long ago. On one page, three identical links called up three entirely different pages.

Problems like these with marketing content, whether website, brochure, success story, blog or newsletter, arise naturally as a company tries to keep pace with changes to their customers, products and services. In a marketing communications audit, I examine your marketing content, page by page, with a fresh eye for inconsistencies and opportunities (what could you be saying that you haven’t said?). Then I produce a report that details problems and oversights and what you can do to make sure your customers receive a correct, consistent, clear and compelling marketing message.

If you haven’t examined your marketing content in a long while, a marketing communications audit is a cost-effective way to make sure your message connects with the right customers in the right way. Contact me today for more information.