The high cost of bad writing

Bad writing is the bane of my life.

It takes more time to read and make sense of bad writing. It’s frustrating red-penning lousy work.

It’s a huge cost to business.

Consider this.

Jo works in a large organisation and spends about 15 minutes each day trying to make sense of poor writing.

It might be a confusing email or memo, so Jo follows up with the sender.

Sometimes it’s a report full of bureaucratese or jargon, which takes ages to understand.

The average salary in Australia is $90,326. That 15 minutes a day is not just frustrating for Jo. It’s costing Jo’s employer around $3,000 a year!

Across our economy, the cost of poor writing is profound.

In 2018, The Economist’s Intelligence Unit found poor communication can result in delayed or failed projects, low morale, missed performance goals, and lost sales, some worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.

It also costs valuable time.

2016 research by author Josh Bernoff found people in business spend 6 per cent of total wages trying to get meaning out of poor writing.

This means if an organisation of 1000 claws back just 2 per cent of their time making sense of other people’s writing, it will free up more than 500 hours a week.

𝘞𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘥𝘰𝘦𝘴 𝘣𝘢𝘥 𝘸𝘳𝘪𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘤𝘰𝘴𝘵 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘵𝘦𝘢𝘮? There’s a calculator on my website that will help you work it out (link in comments)

#Communication#Writing#GetItWrite