The Four Forms of ROI Unique to Professional Writing Training
Posted May 12, 2020
Write frequently about the return on investment companies can gain when they invest in their employees’ writing skills. It’s an important question: the relationship between writing and business outcomes is critical for employers, and spending money on skills’ development makes sense only if it helps organizations meet their goals more effectively and efficiently.
For example, if an employer could reduce the hours its workforce spends on writing projects by 10% or more, the labor cost savings can be enormous. Even in midsized businesses, the savings can be measured in millions of dollars.
So, the return on investment (ROI) of improved writing is clear, but today we want to look at this question from a different angle: what is the ROI specific to different forms of writing skills’ development? Organizations have many options when it comes to how they improve employee writing skills. For example, they can ask their workers to take a DIY approach, they might try to shoehorn writing skills’ practice into other training services, they might hire an academic to consult with them, and so on.
By far, the most effective form of writing skills’ development comes from professional, business-oriented trainers. That’s because such training offers distinctive forms of ROI no other training format can match.
1: It costs less time and money than the alternative.
Focused and goal-oriented writing training will achieve intended outcomes faster and less expensively. For instance, academic educators tend to focus on generic, theoretical instruction. Professional business instruction, instead, is specialized, practical, and designed with ROI in mind.
2: You get the feedback you need on your writing to ensure long-term results.
DIY options like videos, exercises, and guidance on the Web have a serious disadvantage: no personal feedback. Effective skills’ development depends on real-time feedback and advice. For example, learners may not realize they even need correction or improvement unless they receive feedback.
3: You get plentiful individual attention.
Training that focuses on the types of documents your organization actually creates and uses will be more helpful. In the classroom, instructors can these documents as a launchpad to help employees develop strategies specific to your organization’s needs, operations, and objectives.
4: You’ll get more new customers and be more successful with existing customers.
It’s worth mentioning that the ROI of writing training underpins the ROI of improved writing: better training, better long-term outcomes. In some cases, improved writing literally pays for itself. Proposals and sales presentations are the best example: if your team’s writing cuts through the noise and successfully compels the desired action, more deals will be closed and customers may be persuaded to agree to better terms. There’s no better ROI than more money in your pocket.
About Hurley Write, Inc.
Hurley Write, Inc., a certified women-owned small business (WBENC and WOSB), Historically Underutilized (HUB), and Disadvantaged Business Enterprise (DBE), has been designing and teaching customized onsite and online technical, business, and scientific writing services for over 30 years. We also develop and teach specialty services, such as how to write proposals and standard operating procedures (SOPs) and deviation and investigation reports, and how to prepare and give great presentations.Links: Internal, ProQuest
