Alectra Inc. and its subsidiaries provide energy services and solutions to more than 1 million homes and businesses across the Greater Golden Horseshoe Area.
Alectra has a team of 30 engineers and accountants at the leadership and individual contributor level who write technical, regulatory and management documents. The documents contain technical details, and they tend to be difficult for non-technical people or those outside of the industry to read. Our task was to help these professionals write documents that are clear, to the point and readable.
We provided the team with a solution at three levels. First, we gave each team member personalized feedback on their past reports. We pointed out their strengths and opportunities to improve. Second, we facilitated a Business Writing Essentials course at their offices. The participants could link the course content with the feedback they received earlier and discuss their learning with peers and the facilitator. Lastly, each participant received two 20-minute one-to-one coaching sessions with the facilitator. They applied the techniques and strategies learned during the course to their own work documents and received direct feedback from the facilitator.
The participants found our framework, which emphasizes reader-centric thinking, most useful. One participant said,
“This course is helpful in improving business writing skills and identifying main elements to be considered when writing a document so the reader can easily understand the main concept and next steps.”
